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tokiUl T . 2\ . 5L 

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COPYRIGHT 














MARGARET’S MEAD 








©CI.A680273 

OCT 18 1321 

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 

PRINTED AT GARDEN CITY, N. Y., U. S. A. 

First Edition 







V). 


THE DEAR COMPANION OF ALL MY DAYS 
-TRUEST COMRADE, SWEETEST FRIEND — ^ 

MY SISTER 









CONTENTS 


SUMMER 


PAGE 

Arrival i 

Dewy Morn 34 

An Interlude 60 

To Pensive Eve 89 

Aldwich Ill 

Last Days 137 

WINTER 

The Stuff of Life 155 

Good-bye 199 

The Inevitable Close 232 










SUMMER 




MARGARET’S MEAD 


Arrival 

i 

As the train slowed in to the little country sta- 
tion Marion drew a long breath of relief. The 
corner seats were occupied by clamorous children 
but she looked between and past their bobbing 
heads for a familiar face on the platform. 

She caught a slight, graceful figure in well-made 
tweeds with a keen, expectant eye on the carriages. 
Her heart contracted to a queer thrill of mingled 
pain, affection, and pride. 

“ Lottie!” she murmured to herself, and stepped 
eagerly out of the train. Lottie saw her on the 
instant, turned to her with gray-green eyes — by 
courtesy called hazel — a-dance with excitement 
and the swift colour glancing in her thin clear 
cheeks like flame. 

“Of course I came for you. Did you expect to 
find me in bed? Bill is an old worrier! Yes, I al- 
ways call him Bill now because he hates it so.” 
She turned to a porter: “Could you take out the 
case, Mr. Gray? Mr. Napier can’t leave the 
horse. The trunk can come out by milk cart. Oh, 


2 


MARGARET'S MEAD 


thank you.” She swept her sister off the platform 
and out to the dog-cart, gaily conscious of curious 
glances following them, almost before Marion had 
time to smile at the ramblers, crimson and pink, 
climbing the low stone wall. 

“Why ‘Mr. Gray’?” Marion whispered over 
her brother-in-law’s shoulder as the small dress 
case was stowed away in front. “He used to be 
‘Old John’ I think, when I was small.” 

“Why not ‘Mr. Gray’,” answered Lottie. 
“Hasn’t he a right to his name? We’re all demo- 
crats to-day.” She broke off with her “take-you- 
into-my-confidence” laugh. “He’ll do any mor- 
tal thing for me. And then I haven’t to wait. 
This station last winter was the coldest place 
made.” 

Her husband caught part of the sentence. 
“Who’s the latest victim?” asked he. 

Again Lottie laughed, joyous and mischievous. 
“I’ll tell you when we get home,” she said. But 
downright Marion answered for her: “Old 
John.” 

“This mare travels,” remarked Lottie. “Don’t 
you like driving, Marion? Isn’t the sunshine 
lovely? Aren’t you hungry? Don’t you long to 
see Margaret’s Mead?” 

“To see my babies, she means,” interpolated her 
husband. Marion could have slain him for the 
rich, self-satisfied indulgence of his tone. She 
thought: “Shall I ever like Lottie’s men?” and 
hated herself for implied disloyalty. Aloud she 
said, and strove to say gaily: 


ARRIVAL 


3 


“I'm longing to see both; the babies may be 
taken for granted. Yes, I’m longing to see Marga- 
ret’s Mead.” 

“When you ran about it as a kiddie you didn’t 
think you’d live to see Lottie there with me for her 
husband,” her brother-in-law challenged, still with 
rich self-satisfaction. 

Marion answered, diplomatically: 

“I remember you kissing her.” 

He laughed with real enjoyment. 

“I can see Marion now, can’t you, Lottie,” he 
said, “stamping her foot, and me hidden behind the 
door, and saying: ‘I hate those low Napiers!’ ” 

Marion saw pitfalls among these memories; she 
added, with a sober face: 

“ Especially Will ! And so I cried in his arms one 
Christmas Eve.” 

“Three years ago,” said Lottie’s husband, and 
turned fond eyes on his wife. “Nice things you’ve 
brought about for some of us. We shall never for- 
get it, shall we, Marion? ” 

“I never shall,” said Marion. 

“And fancy,” said Lottie, with undisturbed 
equanimity, “that makes Clare nearly four years 
old. Four next Christmas Eve! Wasn’t she a 
sweet mite, Marion? ” 

“I hated the sight of her that day,” replied 
Marion, with vigour, and Will joined her, giving 
his mare a flick: 

“Ay, Marion, so did I.” 

Lottie laughed gladly. “Duffers, both of you,” 
she said; “I take a lot of killing.” 


4 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


She sat rigid suddenly as the mare reared under 
her husband’s hand. 

“What are you doing, Bill,” she cried. “Jess 
never wants the whip.” 

He smiled apologetically as he laid a reassuring 
hand on hers. But his lips were unsteady, and 
Marion’s eyes swam in tears. 

It hardly needed a second glance at Lottie’s 
face to tell even a casual observer that she fought a 
deadlier foe than any birth-time pangs. A bright 
flush waxed and waned in her clear-skinned, sunken 
cheeks; her temples were ominously hollowed, 
eyes as ominously large and bright. The long, 
slender fingers that had been her husband’s pride 
were painful to him now in their growing attenua- 
tion. Marion, freshly noting each warning symp- 
tom, called up all her resources to maintain a 
surface demeanour of happy calm. 

Lottie kept her busily occupied with the loved 
features of a familiar landscape. Her “Do you 
remember?” greeted each turn of the road with 
its hedgerows fragrant of honeysuckle and beauti- 
ful with stir of leaf; with its broad-expansive views 
for ever fashioning into new scenes of beauty — 
downside and woodland, homestead and cot; now 
with the clinging appeal of the near and homely; 
now striking the wide ranging note of spaciousness 
and distance, far hill and dreaming trees. 

There was the white-railed bridge over the trout 
stream, where the postman was awaited of old; 
there the cottage shop where bulls’ eyes turned to 
candy and acid drops gained a curious flavour of 


ARRIVAL 


5 


mould; there the churchyard with its leaning 
gravestones, here the dairyman’s cottage and 
paddock gate. And now at last Marion drew a 
deep breath of emotion as her sister suddenly 
grasped her hand. 

“ Now, Marion! Margaret’s Mead!” 
n 

The long, low house lay dreaming against its 
background of trees. Up from the mellow tiles 
rose its queer red chimney stacks over its wide 
latticed casements protruded tiled and gabled eaves. 
Its red bricks were mellow of time and rich in con- 
trast with timbered lines and encroachments of 
creeper and climbing roses and jessamine upon its 
walls. The garden was ablaze with the red and 
white of stately hollyhocks, the blue of lupins, 
flaming red-hot pokers, and Aaron’s rod. All this 
glimpsed in the distance as a brilliant blurred fore- 
ground of colour, where the true significance of the 
picture lay in pointed gables and quaint chimney 
stacks and blue smoke curling thin against the 
dreaming trees. 

At the back of Marion’s mind as she looked was 
the consciousness of a deep voice uttering words 
whose meaning failed to reach her until they re- 
curred to her in a spell of wide wakefulness in the 
quiet night. Now they were mere sound at which 
she vaguely smiled. Actually Lottie’s husband 
was saying: 

“You two amuse me. You say Margaret’s 
Mead and think of the house; whereas Margaret’s 


6 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


Mead is really the east pasture which the whole 
farm’s now named after. ‘Margaret’s Mead’ can’t 
be a house, ’tisn’t reason.” 

“Name of the farm now, Bill,” Lottie responded, 
absently. Her glance was with Marion’s, seeking 
new aspects of the house at each curve of the wind- 
ing road. 

They turned into the lane that passed the court- 
yard on which the kitchen door opened, and that 
ended with the carter’s cottage. 

“I’m taking you in by the back door, dear,” said 
Lottie. “You won’t mind? I want you to see the 
garden first from the front porch.” 

Marion smiled as she jumped to the ground and 
followed her sister through the bricked courtyard 
to the open kitchen door; she was aware of a man — 
the carter probably — arriving opportunely and 
leading the mare off to the stables, and of Will 
shouting instructions after him. Then as they 
crossed the threshold he was upon their heels and 
before she could take in any other impression of 
the interior he had crossed the kitchen to the hall 
and taken down a gun from the exact place her 
uncle’s had occupied of old. 

“I’ll have an hour’s shooting — you’ll be glad to 
have a talk,” he said to Lottie; and at the door 
called back: “Just an hour.” 

Lottie began a running commentary, half of 
which Marion did not hear. She saw that a dapper 
servant, neat in cap and strings, had risen at their 
entrance from where fat Meg used to sit. All 
signs of the house chaps — dairy chap and odd man 


ARRIVAL 


7 

— had vanished from the big kitchen, and the open 
fire of peat was replaced by a kitchen range. 

“We had a new one,” Lottie was saying. “Mrs. 
Napier had the huge thing that used to be in the 
dining room installed there. My dear! It burnt 
half a ton a day! So I had it taken out and this 
one put in; we can stay in the kitchen with com- 
fort now, can’t we, Kate?” 

They passed on to the dining room. “ Only peep 
in,” said Lottie, “I know you’re dying for a wash 
and something to eat. Better, isn’t it? But I 
don’t like the grate; Mrs. Napier’s taste! Now 
just the garden.” 

They stood in the porch. Marion looked out 
down the grass path between the herbaceous bor- 
ders; at the smiling lawns; at the loaded apple trees. 
Suddenly she turned to Lottie; her eyes were wet. 
Lottie’s lips quivered; she put her arms out and 
took her sister into a fond embrace. 

“My home, your home,” she said, brokenly. 
“Dear, the bad time is over. It’s over! But I 
have such a lot that I must tell you ! ” 

She kept her arm round Marion’s waist as they 
went upstairs. 


in 

The tour of the house was completed later, in the 
fading light of the July day. It was hurried by 
Marion, who saw that Lottie was now thoroughly 
fatigued. She held out insistently, however, vow- 
ing that she was not tired, and the longest pause 
was made in the nursery, where four-year-old Clare 


8 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


lay with tumbled dark hair, like Lottie’s, and the 
eighteen-month boy showed a head covered with 
fine bright curls, only a few shades brighter and 
lighter than Marion’s gold-brown hair. 

“Bobbie is a true Harland,” Lottie said, caress- 
ingly untwining a silken curl. “I took after 
mother’s family. He would do for your son, 
Marion.” 

Marion shook her head. 

“There is more than a touch of Will and you,” 
she said, “though he’s got my hair. He’s sweetly 
pretty, Lottie, but my nose never spread over my 
face like that. Nor did yours. Thank your 
father for a Napier nose, my little man,” she ad- 
jured the sleeping child. 

“If you married his uncle your son might do the 
same,” retorted Lottie. “Walter’s not engaged, 
you know, Marion, and Margaret’s Mead is his.” 

“Thank you,” said Marion. “Obliged, I’m 
sure. But I don’t want your leavings, Lottie. 
Walter wanted you when you were a child of 
twelve.” 

“And hasn’t wanted me since,” laughed Lottie. 
Marion, who knew her sister through and through, 
caught in a moment the note of conscious triumph 
and the light and flush dancing to eyes and cheeks. 
She said, in another tone: 

“When you are resting tell me exactly how things 
stand here.” 

“I want to,” said Lottie, and smiled perversely. 
“You were asking me just now about the men’s 
quarters, since we no longer have them living in, 


ARRIVAL 


9 


and what the cheese room and dairy were used 
for now the milk is sold. There are easily two 
houses under this roof, Marion. Marry Walter 
and I’ll move into the empty rooms.” 

“Do they stand empty?” asked Marion, ignoring 
the rest. 

“As good as empty; most of them actually so. 
I’ve often planned it. The back staircase could 
easily be ” 

“No good, Lottie.” Marion moved toward the 
door. “You know I couldn’t stand Walter any 
more than he could stand me. You know it’s all 
nonsense. What you said in your letter nearly 
kept me away.” 

Lottie laughed. “We’ll see,” she said. “Let’s 
run through the empty rooms and then I’ll lie down 
as you want me to.” 

As they glanced through the rooms, each light 
and fresh with latticed casement windows wide to 
the summer air, and tapped upon by wandering 
tendrils of creeper or rambler or jessamine, Marion 
wondered whether Lottie was subtly counting upon 
the insidious appeal of the country house and 
country life to forward her desires. She soon dis- 
missed the idle speculation; Lottie’s subtlety lay 
in other directions; but her own pause upon the 
doubt showed her the danger as real. Then she 
pushed thought of herself aside with derision, and 
bent her whole mind to looking after her sister. 

So at last she sat beside Lottie’s couch in the long, 
wide, oak-panelled room that ran along one end of 
the house of Margaret’s Mead from south to north, 


IO 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


with a third wide window opening to the west. In 
the faint dusk she was aware of little more than the 
bloom and fragrance of flowers in their bowls, and 
the soft sway of silken curtains stirred by the 
breeze. 

“This room is so cool,” Lottie had urged, when 
Marion had tried to persuade her to go straight to 
bed. “And the nights are so long. If I stay up 
I will eat a supper.” 

She was eating it now, Marion saw to that; her 
prescribed supper of fruit and junket and cream. 
“I used to be so fond of cream,” Lottie deplored, 
“now I have to worry and scheme to find ways of 
taking it without loathing it. But it does me good. 
I’m really getting stronger. If only I could get rid 
of temperatures.” 

Marion assented cheerfully and rejoiced to see the 
look of intense exhaustion leaving her sister’s face. 
She had drawn her chair to Lottie’s feet and sat in 
the dusk listening to her voice after her thin face 
had become no more than a white oval gli mm ering 
through the gloom. 


IV 

“Where do you want me to begin?” Lottie had 
asked. “I wrote you all about the bankruptcy; 
everything was sold, except just my wedding 
presents — oh, yes, and Clare’s pram and cradle. 
There’s a clause, I understand, that spares the 
baby’s things.” 

“What did you do then?” said Marion. 

“We took rooms on the proceeds of the wedding 


ARRIVAL 


ii 


presents, and Will had got a job — a sort of com- 
mission agency some of his betting friends had got 
for him.” Lottie paused. “It was no good,” she 
concluded, “but it kept us floating, with the 
presents, for some weeks.” 

“And then ” 

“Oh, then — then he got other jobs — or didn’t. 
And I took in needlework. I saved my sewing 
machine; I had it before we married, you see. But 
of course I wasn’t strong; and there was Clare; and 
the treadle seemed heavy . . . so in the end 

Bill did the machining for me.” 

“Will? ” Marion stared at her sister with a sort 
of tense surprise. 

“Oh, he did all sorts of things. I had pleurisy 
and he did the cooking, and looked after baby, and 
went down and made me poultices in the night. 
He was a capital nurse. Marion” — she was hold- 
ing one of Marion’s firm, strong hands; now her hot, 
feverish one squeezed it spasmodically — “I learnt 
to love old Bill as I never thought I could love any 
man.” 

Marion stirred restlessly. “Ah,” she said, “if 
only ” 

Lottie dropped her hand and groped suddenly 
for her handkerchief. Marion knew at once that 
she was crying — the swift, blinding, passionate tears 
of anger for a beloved one misunderstood. She 
said: 

“Don’t, dear. Oh, don’t. I do understand. 
He had made up to you — more than made up. I 
see you feel that.” 


12 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“I never loved him enough,” Lottie jerked out, 
between quick hard breaths and sobs. “We were 
equally to blame. You don’t know; you’re not 
married. In the first year of married life you’re 
silly, and hard. People talk about the first gilt 
of marriage — it’s all nonsense. The gilt only begins 
to come if your love survives the first year.” 

Marion longed to say, concisely: “Will drank 
and gambled a little before his marriage, more the 
year after, and more the year after that. There 
was the secret of his ruin.” But she wisely held her 
tongue. How wisely, Lottie’s next words told her. 

“You’ll say Will had begun to go wrong before 
we married. Of course he had. You don’t sup- 
pose I was bad enough to drive him to it if he 
hadn’t? But marriage at that time was the worst 
possible thing for him; for us both! We were so 
critical, so hard, so ignorant. He was to be the 
perfect husband, and he wasn’t, and I the perfect 
wife ” She broke off, put down her handker- 

chief and raised herself on her cushions. It was yet 
light enough for Marion to guess at her characteris- 
tic smile. “I’ve no use for perfection myself,” she 
concluded; “never had. No, we won’t have lights, 
dear, in case the men come in. My nose is like a 
lobster. And what is the good of dwelling on these 
old unhappy times?” 

“Tell me what changed them, instead,” suggested 
Marion. She knew that her sister would carry a 
lighter heart the more she talked now. 

Lottie reflected. “They weren’t altogether un- 
happy,” she said, musingly. “We were so near to 


ARRIVAL 


13 


one another; the nearest- together people in the 
world, I think. Nobody else cared . . . I’m 
sorry, Mary; I didn’t mean to hurt. You see 
you didn’t know; I wouldn’t have told you for 
worlds ! ” 

“I began to fear,” said Marion. “Why didn’t 
you tell me, Lottie?” 

Lottie gave a little laugh. “Before I was mar- 
ried I was always quick enough to come a-borrow- 
ing! Ah, Marion, but this is different. We were 
two against the world. Will would have hated it. 
You never knew. I could tell you . . . one 
day, just at the end, after Will had become changed 
and religious, really in earnest ” 

Marion interrupted: “That lasts?” she asked. 

“Oh, for ever, I think. And it was so queer, the 
very thing you and I used to think so unspeakable! ” 
She paused and laughed on a light note. “You 
remember, Marion, like the Napiers, so low! It 
was an open-air meeting; what we used to call a 
‘street corner conversion’. But, after all, the 
Napiers are like that.” 

“Lottie!” exclaimed Marion. 

“Ah,” said Lottie, laughing again, “I may say it. 
I’m one of the family. But it’s too big a risk for 
others. What was I telling you? ” 

“About the end of the bad time, after Will had 
changed.” 

“I remember. About the sixpence, just before 
the end ; our worst bit of bad luck. It was a pouring 
wet day and Bill had been out in it all the time 
looking for a job. He didn’t get one, not so much 


1 


14 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


as a bag to carry or a horse to hold. At last he 
struck into the country in sheer despair to walk 
himself warm. And as luck would have it a couple 
of horsemen, stragglers from the hunt, were coming 
across a field and making for a gate at the roadside. 
He was able to reach it first and get it open and one 
of them threw him a coin. He hadn’t a doubt it 
was sixpence, but it fell in the mud and it was get- 
ting dark. He searched — wet through as he was — 
until it was too dark to see at all, but he never found 
it. He knew I was at home, expecting him, and 
there wasn’t even bread in the house, nor a fire, nor 
anything of our own left to sell. And he leant over 
the gate and cried like a child.” 

Marion said, in a strangled voice of pain: “ You 
ought 1*o have told me. It would have been so 
easy to send you each week bare necessities.” 

Lottie answered: “Tea and bread and butter 
and cheese, for instance.” Marion herself did a 
hasty mental calculation — the year was 1913 — 
that ran something like — “Quarter pound of tea, 
6d; half pound butter, 8d; cheese say 8d; and 
postage and a shilling postal order — three shillings.” 
Then she heard Lottie saying: 

“Out of six and ninepence a week, my dear — 
your full salary at that time. I could never man- 
age on eight shillings, but then I always had the 
luck to get cribs where the food was bad.” 

“I saved four pounds that year,” remarked 
Marion. 

“Out of £15 and a shilling a week for laundry! 
I don’t know how you did it. At any rate, I wasn’t 


ARRIVAL 


IS 

going to sponge on you when I had a husband to 
fight for me. Perhaps I should have done, who 
knows? But that night, when I had comforted my 
poor broken-hearted Will, I let him write a letter to 
Walter.” 

“He had wanted to before?” 

“Oh, yes. But he had a bitter quarrel with 
those at home before he filed his petition. Will 
wanted them to lend him enough to keep him afloat 
and they wouldn’t.” 

“And this time?” asked Marion. 

“Walter came next day. Their mother was ill 
then. He took Bill back with him and they drove 
in a taxi from Minterne station so that Bill should 
not be seen and recognized. And . . . that’s 
all.” 

“All?” said Marion. 

“All I can tell you to-night,” Lottie answered. 
“ I think I’m tired, Marion. Well . . . it was 
in November that Bill lost sixpence in the mud and 
wrote to Walter and heard his mother was dying. 
She died in December. Bobbie was born in 
January; here, at Margaret’s Mead.” 

v 

As Lottie put her feet to the ground and stood up 
Marion knew that she had told her all she ever 
meant to tell. She was not surprised, for when old 
Mrs. Napier died Lottie had written to her, laconi- 
cally: 

“Will’s mother is dead. I’m not going to pre- 
tend I’m sorry; she was no friend to me. But I’m 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


1 6 

rglad to say she has made some provision for 
us. We are going to live at Margaret’s Mead. 
I can’t say any more. Please burn this letter. 
But the bad days are over, thank God; they’re 
over!” 

While Lottie lit the lamp and drew the casement 
curtains with a rattle of rings on rods, Marion tried 
to fill in the gaps in her story and ran over past 
history for a clue. She recalled old Mr. Napier’s 
death shortly before Will’s marriage and Will’s 
refusal to join in his mother’s scheme of taking the 
farm adjoining Margaret’s Mead so as to more 
conveniently divide the two. Abetted by Lottie 
he had avowed a preference for town life, and his 
ill-advised purchase of a butcher’s business had 
followed. Folly, incompetence, and inexperience 
had soon brought them to the pass Lottie had de- 
scribed. All this was plain enough; but some- 
how present prosperity was left unexplained. For 
when Marion received Lottie’s cryptic letter about 
her mother-in-law’s death she had naturally ex- 
pected more explicit information; but none was 
forthcoming. Annoyed, Marion took an early op- 
portunity of obtaining a copy of Mrs. Napier’s 
will. It carried her no further, for Will’s name was 
not mentioned. 

She had asked herself then : “ Why burn Lottie’s 
letter?” Now she added to her former question: 
“Why a hired taxi that Will should not be seen?” 
She could not quite understand it, though dimly she 
began to guess. 

Now, before she could remind Lottie that it was 


ARRIVAL 


i7 


nearly ten, her brother-in-law came in followed by 
a man whom she did not at once recognize. Lottie 
turned to them languidly, asking, “Where have 
you been?” and added, “Walter, it is years since 
you have seen Marion.” 

From where he stood he gave her a crisp, curt, 
“How d’you do?” Marion was conscious of little 
but distaste, over and above a quick, overmastering 
surprise. Obviously, it was years since she had 
seen Walter, and imagination rather than memory 
had given him to her as an older and smaller dupli- 
cate of Will. But Walter bore no resemblance to 
his brother. Where Will was heavy and flabby, 
sallow, full faced and full lipped, given to curves and 
creases, Walter was small, wiry, light on his feet; 
red in the face, with high, pronounced cheekbones, 
sharp features, and obstinate mouth and chin. His 
restless glance, penetrating and aggressive, affected 
Marion’s nerves with the menace of bared steel. 
His forehead was imposing and his expression that 
of tireless energy and dogged force of will. The 
Napier nose, wide and blunt, coarsened a face 
otherwise arrestingly keen. 

All this Marion saw in one quick, quiet glance; 
then she fell to inward scorn of the lack of savoir 
faire that kept him stiff and awkward, incapable 
of the outstretched hand and tactful word of 
greeting. His hands were bony, untended and 
rough; he had an evil taste in ties. She said to 
Will: 

“I am sure Lottie is very tired.” 

He turned to his wife. 


i8 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“Bed, little woman,” he said. His voice held a 
fond, caressing intonation. Lottie leant against 
him. She asked again: 

“Where have you been?” 

‘ 1 Look in the pantry on your way upstairs ! And 
we’ve had supper since we came in, remember. 
Besides, we thought you’d be wanting to talk. 
Good-night, Lottie.” 

“Look in at the children when you come up,” 
she said, not moving. 

He put her gently from him as her attitude in- 
vited him to do, and kissed her fondly on both 
cheeks. Walter watched them. As her husband’s 
hand rested on her shoulder Lottie turned her lips 
to it, once and twice. Then she went across to her 
brother-in-law and said, lightly: 

“Good-night, Walter.” 

He touched the hand she extended and dropped 
it and turned away. Lottie asked: 

“Are you coming now, Marion?” 

Marion suffered her brother-in-law’s kiss. Ex- 
perimentally she offered her hand to Walter. He 
gripped it casually and said: “Good-night.” She 
saw that his eyes followed Lottie. 

vi 

Lottie did not look into the pantry on her way 
upstairs. Marion thought of it because Walter’s 
words had recalled to her how it used to look after 
her uncle had returned from a successful evening’s 
shoot. She wondered if it would contain now, as 
then, the strung rabbits, perchance a hare, and the 


ARRIVAL 


19 

beautiful blue-gray of pigeons’ plumage; or would 
there be wild duck or a moor hen? 

As she followed Lottie, she fancied she re- 
membered how, even in those far-off days, her 
interest had been mixed with pain and compassion 
for the soft, wild, slaughtered things; an instinct 
of rebellion against pain and death. 

From her mental picture of the pantry’s evening 
aspect she flew to that of the sunny morning hour, 
as she had seen it when she joined her aunt and 
uncle at their lunch. There would be the high 
wide window, framed in bright green leaves; the 
bricked floor offering so many varying colours; the 
curious mingled smell of cheese and fruit and 
various foodstuffs; the shelves lining the walls, 
filled with neat rows of preserves and pickles in 
shining glass or drab stoneware; then the small 
table and the stools; Windsor stools for her aunt 
and uncle and the little ones from the dining room 
for her and Lottie; her aunt and uncle busy with 
bread and cheese and mugs of ale from the huge 
barrel at one side — old-fashioned two-handled 
mugs with pictures that her soul had delighted in; 
the clear, brown ale, too, with its froth and odour, 
and uncle’s cheese that hopped about his plate; 
then herself and Lottie with milk and cake, or 
fruit, or bread-and-butter and jam, or cream and 
junket .... , 

She said suddenly to Lottie: “Do you have ten 
o’clock lunch in the pantry now?” 

Lottie laughed. “Good gracious, no! Are we 
still in the year one? We don’t breakfast till half- ' 


20 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


past eight. Walter and Will have their vacuum 
flasks filled with tea overnight and just get a snack 
themselves before they go out. I should never 
keep a maid, if I wanted a cooked breakfast ready 
by seven. Besides, it’s really best for them to 
have something before they go out at all, I think.” 

Marion reminded herself of the passing of time. 
When she last stayed at Margaret’s Mead she was 
ten years old; now she was twenty-four! She 
listened to Lottie as her rather elaborate prepa- 
rations for the night were made, aiid felt a queer 
tightening round her heart when at last the thin, 
tired face was laid against the pillow. She asked 
her sister, casually: 

“Do you sleep well, Lottie?” 

“Sometimes,” Lottie answered. She added, 
fretfully: “I am not sleepy now. If one could 
get over the first long hours!” 

“I’ll bring you some hot milk, that’s a good 
opiate,” said Marion. 

The tired face brightened. “You darling! 
Marion, be careful to look at the saucepan — the 
blue enamel one. I never trust a maid over a 
milk saucepan; I should just scour it out before I 
used it. The things are on the shelf above the 
trough.” 

Marion smiled at the characteristic speech as she 
turned from the big, airy, spotless room and took 
her way to the kitchen. Well-ordered cleanliness 
greeted her. She lit a candle to find her way to 
the half-empty dairy, with the household supply 
of milk and eggs and butter standing lonely upon 


ARRIVAL 


21 


its shelves. Cool night breezes crept in through 
the many narrow window slits; the stone floor 
gleamed white; shadows flitted in dim recesses. 
Marion held the candle high, peering round. 

“This house,” she murmured to herself, “must 
have filled my dreams. I do nothing here but 
remember!” 

Before she left Lottie for the night she drew back 
the curtains from her windows west and south, and 
set the casements open to their widest. Lottie re- 
fused her kiss. 

“We’ll take no risks,” she said. “In six months’ 
time, perhaps, when its acknowledged I’m quite 
well. Imagine this room in the winter, with frost 
and snow ! It was like being out in a storm. Good- 
night, dear; sleep well.” 

Marion blew her a kiss, smiling, and closed the 
door gently behind her with an altered face. She 
went downstairs again unhesitatingly. There had 
been a light under the oak room door. She 
thought: “Now for a talk with Will.” 

But when she opened the oak room door it was 
Walter she found seated at the table poring over a 
book. 


VII 

Walter Napier took little notice of her entrance. 
He looked up, but neither rose nor spoke, and 
in a moment or two, finding him quite content 
to continue his reading and ignore her, Marion 
remarked : 

“I was looking for Will.” 


22 MARGARET’S MEAD 

He glanced up sharply. “Is he wanted?” he 
asked. 

“I wanted to talk to him,” replied Marion. 
Walter’s interest subsided. He said, in a careless, 
final way: 

“He’s gone to bed.” 

His manner irritated Marion. She stared at him 
steadily until he looked up; whereupon she re- 
marked, quietly: 

“I expect you will do equally well.” 

She was pleased that he betrayed intense surprise. 
But he stood up at last, in interest rather than po- 
liteness. He said: 

“Then if you don’t mind we’ll talk out of doors. 
Lottie’s room is overhead.” 

He had a boor’s manners, and left Marion to 
follow him out of the room. It appeared that the 
garden also was tabooed as being too close to 
Lottie, for he led the way through kitchen and 
courtyard and across the lane to the paddock 
gate. On that he leant an arm and turned to 
Marion. 

“Hope you’re not conventional,” said he. 

Marion could have struck him; for tone, even 
more than speech, revealed all his brother’s over- 
consciousness of sex. She answered, coolly: 

“It isn’t a very striking breach of the con- 
ventions to stroll fifty yards from the house on a 
summer evening, is it?” 

He pulled out his watch and turned its luminous 
face to her. The hands showed quarter to eleven. 
Then without giving her time to comment, he said : 


ARRIVAL 


2 3 

“ You want to know exactly what the specialist 
said about Lottie? ” 

“I do.” 

“Will couldn’t have told you for he doesn’t 
know, except what I chose to tell him. He couldn’t 
pluck up courage to hear the verdict direct.” 

Scathing scorn of his brother’s weakness spoke 
in his voice: then it took a lower but even fiercer 
note. He said, almost under his breath, but with 
an indescribable vehemence: 

“The woman never lived who loved life more 
than Lottie. So with luck, if you, and we, do our 
utmost for her, she may have another six months. 
She can’t have more!” 

Misery seized Marion in its grip: she was silent; 
the truth was hardly worse than her fear, though 
Walter had written her of a year. She saw Lottie 
on the platform, elate and buoyant; Lottie eagerly 
pointing out remembered scenes; Lottie saying 
fondly: “My home — your home.” “The bad 
time is over.” 

Walter had not expected silence. He had 
thought himself prepared for doubt, for tears. 
Marion surprised and disarmed him. He asked, 
brutally: 

“Are you prepared to stay and do your utmost? 
There’s no prospect of recovery and some danger 
from infection.” 

His words cut athwart the summer dark in 
which, for brief moments, Marion had sought 
to dwell alone with her memories; she replied, 
quietly: 


24 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“ I told Will what I would do when I answered his 
letter.” 

“If I had seen your answer I should not ask,” 
retorted the man beside her, “you may be sure of 
that. Though the letter you answered was none 
of Will’s. I dictated every word.” 

“I see,” Marion answered; her heart was beat- 
ing painfully. “I should like to know exactly the 
position Will occupies in this place?” 

“You mean, who is master? I am. You 
mean, what is Will? To me he is just the man 
Lottie happens to love! I’ve no use for him, 
otherwise.” 

“Does Will know that?” asked Marion, with a 
mildness of sarcasm that surprised her. Before 
Walter could reply she added, quickly: “If you 
want me to stay here you had better tell me ex- 
actly what the position is.” 

Walter Napier looked at her and seemed to pause 
for mental calculation. Again in the silence 
Marion strove to find comfort in the encompassing 
friendliness of the calm summer night. Then he 
asked, curtly: 

“You know something about business?” 

“A little.” 

“Anything about bankruptcy?” 

“Not much.” 

“You know Will was bankrupt? It was a bad 
bankruptcy, about as rotten as such things can be; 
so they would not give him his discharge. You 
know what that means? ” 

“ It means that his affairs may be re-opened and # 


ARRIVAL 


25 

a levy made upon any available assets,” hazarded 
Marion, from a rather limited experience. 

“So you do know something about business,” 
Walter commented, dryly. “Very well, then. 
My mother quite made up her mind that she was 
not going to leave her money to Will’s creditors. 
She didn’t, as no doubt you know?” 

“I know he was left nothing in her will,” 
said Marion. “Apparently she did something 
else?” 

“She did what I suggested,” answered Walter, 
“and what nobody knows besides Will, and Lottie, 
and you. She saw Will — I thought it as well that 
nobody should know he came here — and told him 
that she was leaving me everything on condition 
that I employed him as my bailiff at a given salary 
and made him a yearly present of a hundred pounds 
for ten years.” 

Marion stared at him. “A verbal promise,” 
she exclaimed, involuntarily. 

“Rather more than a promise,” said Walter, 
grimly. “But you don’t suppose a written agree- 
ment would have been of any use? Imagine me re- 
fusing to keep the terms and Will endeavouring to 
compel me by producing an agreement made with 
the obvious purpose of defrauding his creditors! 
No. Instead she made us swear by everything 
she thought we held dear. You didn’t know my 
mother?” 

“I’ve heard a lot about her,” said Marion. 

“That’s not knowing her. Her mother was a 
gipsy of long descent. She had a long head — 


26 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


mother added foresight to the cheap gipsy cunning. 
She took a tremendous interest in life. It heart- 
ened her up on her deathbed to think of the possi- 
bilities of things happening with Lottie and Will 
and I housed under one roof. A sort of wild beast 
show!” His voice took a fierce, challenging note. 
“That was my mother. I hate your tame, half- 
alive women.” 

“As I loathe your wild-beast men,” retorted 
Marion, on a spurt of uncontrollable anger. 

“Thanks.” He turned his eyes upon her with 
derisive approbation as he lounged against the 
gate. “So you have that much of Lottie in you? 
From what I’d heard of you I imagined you one of 
the tame cats. Hadn’t we better go in? We might 
get to like one another.” 

Marion made no mistake. She told herself that 
she had taken the measure of this man; this man 
with cruel perceptions stretching out after people’s 
sensibilities and with a cruel delight in jarring 
them; with his tremendous physical magnetism 
that had at first frightened her, and that still 
alternately fascinated and repelled. She felt she 
might sometimes enjoy fighting it; meeting it 
and doing vigorous battle. She said, calmly: 

“You will do what you like, I am staying another 
five minutes.” 

Again she was conscious of his surprise. He 
stood silent a minute or two; then he said, in a 
matter-of-fact way: 

“The position being what it is, do you intend to 
stay here?” 


ARRIVAL 


27 


“I do.” 

“For the salary Will mentioned? ” 

“I shall ask him to make it twenty-four pounds 
instead of twenty; I was already earning twenty; 
my next rise would have been to twenty-four. 
When I go back to bookkeeping after this interval 
I may have to again take twenty.” 

“So that is the condition?” 

The quality of his voice made Marion flame 
again. “It is no condition,” she remarked. “I 
should stay if he refused; if he was mean enough 
to give me nothing at all.” 

“By which you mean if I am mean enough,” 
said Walter Napier. “I shall decide the question.” 

Marion threw a wealth of scorn into her next 
words. 

“So that is what a verbal undertaking means 
when made by a Napier?” 

She thought for a moment that the primitive man 
at her side might strike her. But it seemed Walter 
Napier had a measure of self-control. He ran his 
fingers through his hair with a curious characteris- 
tic gesture and backward jerk of his head. Then 
he broke into quick, impetuous speech. 

“Understand me,” he said. “Everything Will 
has he owes to me; or rather to Lottie. My mother 
never forgave him for refusing to join in with us 
about Piper’s Farm, nor for marrying Lottie. She 
hated Lottie; she was bound to hate any woman 
who married her son. She would not have left Will 
a cent but for my persuasion. Never mind what 
arguments I used; the fact remains that every 


28 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


penny Will had from my mother would have been 
mine if I had not chosen otherwise.” 

“Yet your mother made you swear by every- 
thing you held sacred,” Marion reminded him. 

“Quite so. You don’t suppose she thought the 
whole thing came from me? By the time we had 
finished it was her plan, her darling scheme, as of 
course it had to be. And you don’t ask what we 
swore to? The main point was that no penny of 
her money should go to satisfy Will’s creditors, and 
the second that we should keep it secret. My 
mother was tired of seeing us live down bad 
odours.” 

“No doubt,” said Marion. 

“No doubt,” he echoed, jeeringly. “I should 
have supposed you pictured us insensible to such 
things! As to the exact terms of the bargain and 
my method of keeping it — you know a little of Will 
and a little of business — think it over!” 

Without a further word he strode away from her, 
across the lane, through the courtyard, and into 
the house. 


VIII 

For a moment Marion listened intently, fearing 
he might forget her and bolt and bar the door. But 
a bar of light from the kitchen shone clear and a 
little wider after he had crossed the threshold, show- 
ing that he had left the door still more agape. 

Then she released her attitude of tension and for 
a few minutes stood still, the tears welling to her 
eyes and falling unchecked. It was the end of a 


ARRIVAL 


29 


day full to the brim of pain and emotion. Lottie 
was very dear to her and the things Lottie did and 
the men Lottie liked so utterly the reverse. And 
she was to lose Lottie! Could that flame be 
quenched, that eager, loving, trifling spirit quelled? 
Was death the end of human personality? And if 
not, once lost, could it again be found? 

Only the old questions, faced often, rarely 
answered. Beside them the recent encroachments 
of Walter Napier upon her thought and time seemed 
jarring impertinences to be dismissed and for- 
gotten. Only — only he loved Lottie. There was 
the unmistakable, incomprehensible thing! And 
Lottie undoubtedly knew it; knew it and rejoiced 
in it and trifled with it! His love to her was a 
thing she had evoked so easily that she could 
say to her sister with gaiety, “Now let him love 
you.” 

“As though it was a game one played,” reflected 
Marion, absently. “I tossed the ball awhile; now 
I give it to you; you toss it. Somehow I don’t 
think I’ve the gift, or the wish, to play this particu- 
lar game. Certainly not with the men who love 
Lottie. Perhaps different men require a different 
skill.” 

Her eyes were dry enough now, and she told her- 
self that she mustn’t think of death again, only 
weak and silly emotion lay that way. There were 
things to do. Besides, she had done without Lottie 
before; Lottie had had but few thoughts to spare 
for her of late. “Only she is all I have in the 
world,” thought Marion, and checked herself upon 


30 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


the thought, looked resolutely round upon the 
sleeping countryside, and went toward the house. 

Very carefully and quietly she closed the door, 
turned the lock, and shot the bolts. Lottie, she 
hoped, would be sleeping. What a life she was 
leading Walter! What a dog’s life! 

“You know a little of Will — and a little of busi- 
ness. Think it over.” 

Marion thought it over. Will, with his weak 
extravagances and love of ease; Will, easily swayed 
by the last stronger mind he met; Will, a born 
blabber and boaster, foolishly vain, foolishly fond. 
Could any treatment have been meted out to him 
that would provide for his prosperity better than 
this? And his new religion that yet allowed him 
to forget his just debts; that could combine with 
the most deliberate purpose of evading them! 

Quietly undressing, Marion filled in the gaps in 
Walter’s narrative and Lottie’s brief summaries. 
“I can’t say any more. Please burn this letter.” 
Marion wondered whether it was a criminal of- 
fence to know that you would soon be able to pay a 
portion of your debts while invoking the Bank- 
ruptcy Act to annul them. She thought not. The 
law provided many avenues of escape for debtors, 
erring as much on the one side now as it had for- 
merly erred on the other. But undoubtedly local 
opinion would have its say in the matter. Es- 
pecially since the Napier fortunes were founded on 
an opportune bankruptcy many years ago. 

Marion remembered how her relatives, people of 
sterling honour and the strictest integrity, had 


ARRIVAL 


3i 


scorned the Napiers as sharp-dealing, money-lend- 
ing, money-making folk, who affected to despise the 
rich and ground the faces of the poor; who im- 
poverished the land they farmed and seized hun- 
grily upon any flaw in a lease that could be wrested 
to their advantage. 

Suddenly she brought her thoughts back from 
the pleasant places of the past, where those around 
her had loved so naturally and sincerely the things 
that were good, to this present, where her people 
were the Napiers and their affairs and their con- 
duct her concern. 

Lottie was Marion’s only near relative. 

“No doubt,” Marion carried her thoughts on, 
“Will would have resisted some of the proposals at 
first; would have thought it consistent with his 
new convictions to make the payment of his debts a 
duty. And he would have been shown a nearer 
duty in wife and child. One could imagine each 
stock argument. Will had got his discharge within 
two months of his mother’s death.” 

“It is so late,” she murmured to herself, when at 
last she stood up from her prayers, a slim figure of 
considerable charm and beauty, with bright hair 
that escaped from its night confinement and stole 
out in caressing curls and tendrils against her white 
neck and broad brow; with large wide eyes heavily 
lashed and lidded, and the soft bloom of youth still 
tinting cheek and lip. None the less for her tired- 
ness she unlocked a little writing case and took 
from it a postcard, addressed in a firm, masculine 
hand. 


3 2 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


She read first the address: “Miss Harland, South 
Coast A.B.C. Aldwich.,” with the left-hand note 
“Please forward,” and then the message. It was 
brief: 

I want to know what you are doing. 

Marion held it, ruminating. She imagined cir- 
cumstances in which its very brevity would have 
had its own appeal, with the bare simplicity of its 
linked “I” and “you.” From a lover, even, it 
might not have been amiss! And she shook her 
head regretfully. For this was no lover, she well 
knew. It simply meant that the writer had been 
good enough to give her certain sound business 
advice; that she had promised to tell him how she 
prospered, and that she had not done so. 

So he wrote, with a kindness of sustained interest 
she had not reckoned on, “I want to know what 
you are doing.” 

Suddenly Marion knew, as though a voice spoke 
in her ear, why she had had to look at the postcard. 
It was to warm herself at the thought of someone 
who cared, even so slightly, what she was doing! 

For on this first day of meeting with her sister 
after years of absence no question of her welfare had 
been asked, no single question! “I might have 
been a tortoise hibernating,” thought Marion, and 
smiled at the conceit. She knew well that the 
interest of her arrival and her doings here centred 
not in the least in her, but in Lottie. 

Then suddenly the meagreness of that to which 
she turned for warmth struck her; just this much 


ARRIVAL 


33 

of kindly interest from a man in whose busy life 
she was the merest incident. 

“But it is all I have,” thought Marion. 

She saw that it would not do to ponder this; she 
would be wallowing in maudlin self-pity. She 
nodded cheerfully to the postcard and thrust it 
under her pillow, remarking: 

“I will answer you to-morrow.” 


Dewy Morn 


i 

In the pearl gray of a misty morning Marion 
tripped down the grass paths of the kitchen garden 
to make her plans for the day. Lottie still liked to 
share the housekeeping so she gave no more at- 
tention to the vegetables than to note that there 
was a big picking of peas and that the scarlet run- 
ners might very well be left another day. Her 
concern was with the fruit trees — an overgrown, 
prickly, disorderly looking mass at the bottom of 
the garden — where she soon stood overlooking 
them with a rather comical expression of anxiety 
and dismay. 

Cobwebs, heavily hung with dew, stretched from 
bush to bush and festooned the boughs; the ground 
was damp, the air freshly odorous. 

“The sun will have to be well up before I begin 
picking,” thought Marion, surveying the laden 
boughs. “Everything is so dripping wet. And 
how hot it will be!” She thought of the sun beat- 
ing down upon the back of her bare neck while with 
bent head and bowed back she stripped the lower 
branches. She thought soberly of the thorns, the 
stickiness, the stains, the dishevelment. But soon 
her look cleared ; she smiled amusedly, saying aloud : 


34 


DEWY MORN 


35 


“I shall borrow a sunbonnet!” 

With that she turned on her heel. She had 
found decision. The black currants must be 
picked first as the most popular and really useful; 
she cast an anxious eye on the reds where the 
birds were making such depredations. Then her 
steps were arrested. On the damp grass paths no 
sound gave warning of the approach of a newcomer, 
and she had turned to find Walter Napier a few 
yards away from her. 

He said “Good morning,” and “You’re out 
early” with a noticeable advance toward friendli- 
ness since their encounter of a month before. 
Marion replied, quite casually: 

“See what a town-bred I am, after all. I had 
some idea of fruit picking before breakfast!” 

He relaxed to his hard-won smile as he came 
close to her; so close that their sleeves brushed. He 
remarked, curtly: 

“Heavy dew.” 

“So I must postpone it until the sun is high,” 
went on Marion. Her colour rose under his un- 
wavering eye. She knew it scrutinized her; she 
never knew whether it admired or disdained. 

Marion herself was diffident about her looks, 
sometimes pleased and sometimes jarred: so she 
lacked the calm assurance of a self-confident beauty, 
too often its owner’s sole claim to the title. To-day 
she wore a short tweed skirt and blue blouse from 
the open neck of which her white throat and shapely 
head rose flower-like. Walter Napier missed no 
grace of poise, no perfection of tint, no beauty of 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


36 

curve and line. But his gaze held disdain; Marion 
made no mistake in her intuitive doubt. He was 
remarking to himself that, with all the stir and 
pleasure the girl’s indisputable beauty could give 
to his senses, it left his passion for Lottie — Lottie, 
emaciated and hectic; Lottie, in health graceful 
rather than pretty; Lottie, changeful, capricious, 
and vain; unchallenged and undisturbed. He would 
have given much to unlove Lottie. Gratefully 
would he have let this girl, this chit, with her 
young beauty, her nice morality, her nimble brains, 
dislodge her sister from his heart. But Marion 
could not work the oracle. No utterance of hers 
fired him. She pleased his senses — stirred them 
even — but left his passion undisturbed. 

Yet he made the attempt, trying contact, as 
experimentally as he had tried to awake jealousy 
in Lottie to ease his smart. Marion, therefore, 
wishing to return to the house, found her path 
blocked. 

“ There is no need for you to do all this fruit 
picking,” he remarked. “You came to look after 
Lottie, not to enter upon an economy campaign.” 

“I can’t let it all spoil,” returned Marion. 
“I don’t let it interfere with looking after 
Lottie.” 

“I know that. It eases her mind, too. She has 
the same inbred hatred of waste. But it keeps you 
working morning, noon, and night.” 

“I must work,” Marion replied. Her reason 
for working made her forget whom she was talking 
to: she went on as she would have done to herself, 


DEWY MORN 


37 

hardly conscious that she was thinking the familiar 
thoughts aloud. 

“I must work. If I read I find that the drama 
we are living unfolds itself between me and the 
drama of the printed page. If I go anything but 
exhausted to bed I lay awake thinking of it. But 
if I set myself a task, saying that I must do so much 
before a certain time, or before sundown, I bend all 
my energies to working and calculating whether I 
can get it done. I occupy my thoughts and I tire 
myself out.” 

Walter Napier stared at her now in earnest. 

“We jog along here,” said he, “seeing no one, 
doing everlastingly the same things. I hardly 
know where drama comes upon the scene.” 

“Don’t you?” said Marion. “I should have 
thought you felt it in your very bones. Will and 
Lottie and you — and now me, as spectator. ‘A 
wild-beast show’, I think you called it. I don’t 
find it exactly that, though something like it.” 

Walter Napier no longer stood in her path. He 
would have been very glad for her to go. But 
sombreness seemed to have settled on Marion as 
the summer morning brightened. 

“Will and Lottie and you,” she repeated. “Just 
think of it. Will and you caring for her so intensely 
and knowing she’s going; and Lottie not knowing, 
and not caring about you, either of you, very much. 
Oh, I know she’s warm hearted and affectionate — 
she does love you both, differently, in her way. 
You give her so much of what she wants — love and 
admiration — men’s love — her natural food.” 


38 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


Napier interpolated, hoarsely, against his will, 
in a sort of lost surprise: 

“You don’t know your sister.” 

“Oh, yes, I do,” said Marion. “I know her 
exactly. She doesn’t for a moment mean to hurt 
you, but you’re so amusing, and it’s a game she 
loves to play ! To flatter you and make Will angry ; 
to openly love Will and watch you wince; to keep 
all the men about the place, down to the youngest 
labourer, dancing eager attendance on her whims; 
to play you all off one against another, and then 
to see me watching, and wincing, and hating it 
all!” She stopped, and lifted brooding eyes 
to his. “It’s the game she loves, and it keeps her 
alive.” 

Walter Napier felt the truth of every word — 
words which gave the truth to him as by light of 
revelation. 

“If she was not dying it would be comedy,” 
commented Marion, concluding, “As it is . . . ” 

He interrupted, sneering, a smile twisting his 
thin lips. 

“Don’t look for tragedy,” said he. “I’m not 
Lottie’s lover.” 

Marion turned untroubled eyes on him. 

“I did not say you were,” she answered. 
“There’s a wide gulf between anything I said and 
that! But please understand, though I love my 
sister, I am not a gull as well as a spectator. I shall 
see to it that you do not make Lottie jealous by 
practising on me.” 

“No living woman would be jealous of you,” cried 


DEWY MORN 39 

Napier, stung, “You haven’t it in you to make 
them.” 

“Thank you,” said Marion, lightly. “Then 
why try?” She made to step past him on the 
narrow path and, whether to detain her for a retort 
or in anger at a mocking goad in her voice, Napier 
caught at her hand. Marion let him grasp it, with 
a smile on her lips and a light in her eyes that were 
Lottie’s. 

Napier flung the warm, vibrant hand from him 
with an oath, and the mockery of Marion’s glance 
became exactly Lottie’s, as one sister will resemble 
another. 

On the instant the thing she had, unconsciously 
in the last few moments, played for, happened. 
The derisive mockery of her glance, the haunting 
resemblance to Lottie, struck on Napier’s senses 
like a whip. He took a forward step; seized, not 
her hand but her slim waist; and felt the supple 
muscles stiffen in his grasp. 

With a single strong movement Marion released 
herself. She sent cold eyes to his, said, on a 
scathing accent of scorn: “Be careful!” and sped 
from him up the path. 

She said to herself disjointedly as she ran: 
“How dare he say that? How horrible I am ! Was 
it my fault? I don’t care; I would do it again!” 

11 

A door in the thatched wall of the kitchen garden 
opened into the courtyard. As Marion reached it 
she stayed her steps and turned her thoughts 


40 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


toward her next task. It was too early for breakfast 
preparations to be going forward, but the house was 
well awake: Kate beating her mats against the 
courtyard wall; Clare’s voice issuing from the 
open windows of the nursery, and Phyllis the nurse- 
maid answering from the adjoining bedroom in a 
jerky voice that suggested the energetic making 
of beds. 

Lottie would almost certainly be awake. Marion 
did not go into the house but opened a door in the 
opposite wall of the courtyard into the pleasure 
garden. Here was stillness, beauty, fragrance: 
a riot of delicate and brilliant hues in a restful 
setting of green. Apparently nothing moved be- 
hind the casements opening wide upon it. Arrived 
under Lottie’s window Marion very softly called 
her name. 

“ Yes, dear. Wide awake but not getting up yet. 
Where are you?” 

Marion read fatigue into the low tones. She 
answered : 

“In the garden now. But coming up to you 
since you are awake.” 

She slipped through the porch and up the wide, 
shallow stairs. Entering Lottie’s room she did 
not need to ask how she was. Bending, she kissed 
her sister’s brow and said, gently: 

“Your cough has been troublesome. You have 
had a restless night.” 

Lottie answered: “It’s good to have you here 
to take the reins, and to know I needn’t trouble 
about anything. How early you are!” 


DEWY MORN 


4i 


"It is such a lovely morning, dear,” said Marion. 
"After breakfast you must come down and enjoy 
the garden. I'm going to wheel your bed nearer 
the window now, so that you can look out upon it.” 

She busied herself in the room, doing the thou- 
sand and one things that lend it freshness and ease 
a patient of all fatigue. Lottie watched her 
languidly, accepting her ministrations with the 
unquestioning gratitude that made her so easy to 
serve. But presently she took Marion's breath 
away with the question: 

"I wonder if I shall be able to get up to-day?” 

She smiled at her sister's startled, arrested face. 
She added: 

"You see, dear, I am always so much better than 
I was yesterday, but so much worse than I was a 
fortnight ago!” 

Marion went over to her and Lottie caught one 
of her hands in both hers. She said, with a heart- 
rending smile: 

"That is the way of it, isn't it, Marion?” 

Marion answered, with tremulous lips: "The 
heat tries you.” 

"I know,” said Lottie. "It tries you, too. It 
has worn your nerves so thin that it troubles you to 
face me sometimes without tears. That's all, dear. 
A fortnight ago I could not have been reconciled to 
any thought but of getting better. Now — with this 

heat ” the inflection of mockery in her voice 

was delicate enough to be missed by any ears but 
Marion's; "I am so tired that I really cannot 
care.” 


42 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


She kept a smile on her lips, and it was the smile 
that broke Marion: that, and the serene beauty and 
freshness of the summer day. If Lottie had re- 
leased her hand she would have hurried away from 
her and returned soon with new disguises. But 
Lottie held her hand with gentle tenacity, and 
Marion could not move. Moreover, she did not 
know which of two Lotties addressed her: the one 
so gaily in love with life, so unconsciously cruel in 
her coquettish caprice, and so consistently lovable 
withal, or the Lottie of strong and simple faith, 
turning to a God who was Father and Friend; the 
loving mother and fond wife of homely and practical 
simplicity. 

Such Marion felt the dual personality of her sister 
to be. And the first Lottie might be put off with 
bright evasions, but the second — dare she offer 
cheats and illusions to her? 

So for a few moments she stood in silence and in 
prayer. Lottie might have many days yet of re- 
newed strength and tranquil gladness. Was she to 
throw over them the shadow of an inexorable doom? 
At long last her prayers were answered. Lottie 
gave her her lead. She murmured, gently: 

“But don’t grieve, Mary. I am so tired to-day. 
And then I give up hope. But I ought not to 
sadden you by expressing my convictions; because, 
you see, if to-morrow I am less tired, I shall be con- 
vinced of the exact reverse.” 

Marion knew in a moment where she stood. 
Lottie was not wistfully seeking another opinion; 
not wishing to be enlightened as to her condition if 


DEWY MORN 


43 


light was to be had. Had she been doing so Marion 
felt that she must tell her the truth. But it was 
plain that Lottie was content to gauge her health 
from her sensations, her progress from her own 
observation. Nay, more, she preferred to be left 
to her own opinions and conjectures, with human 
evasion of a truth undesired. 

Marion answered her last speech with: “I 
should like to see you much better than I have seen 
you yet.” She doubted that Lottie heard her. 
Clare’s small treble voice and pattering feet 
sounded in the passage and in the next moment 
Phyllis entered with Bobbie frantically clutching 
at her skirt. Walking was as yet a tremendous 
adventure for Lottie’s son and heir. 

Marion ran off while the children stayed, intent 
on other tasks. When she returned Lottie had an 
instant question: 

“What plans have you for to-day, Mary?” 

“None,” said Marion, “except black currants.” 

Lottie laughed and frowned. 

“I want them picked and I want you myself to- 
day,” she said. “How is it to be managed? 
Can’t Will spare a man? Ask him, Marion. It’s 
too close for me down by the currant bushes, and I 
don’t want to be left alone.” 

“What do you want me to do?” Marion asked, 
with the caressing intonation that gave Lottie all 
she asked. 

“To sit in the garden by my chair and clear up 
the basket of mending. Then when I’m feeling 
fit I can go on embroidering Clare’s frock without 


44 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


conscience pricks. And I want you to talk — tell 
me things. The thought of it rests me, Mary. I 
can’t read to-day. But you and I in the shade, cool 
and lazy. Not me resting and you hot and tired, 
slaving away at black currants!” 

They laughed, Lottie’s voice held a note of dis- 
gust so deep. Marion said, lightly and cheerfully: 

“No black currants. A long confab in the shade 
and all the socks mended! Say I’m an angel. I 
hate darning.” 

“It isn’t darning,” said Lottie, literally, “and it 
isn’t socks. It’s patching; the pieces of woven 
mending came yesterday. Marion, are you getting 
on better with Walter?” 

“Getting on better?” repeated her sister. “We 
have always ‘got on’ quite well.” She stood very 
still and watchful. 

“I know,” said Lottie. “Even to the point 
of wandering off together the first night you 
came.” 

Marion answered, in a voice carefully matter of 
fact: 

“I think not, dear. We certainly talked for 
perhaps half an hour at the paddock gate.” 

Lottie flushed crimson. “You did?” she said, 
in a voice of intense surprise. 

It was instantly plain to Marion that Walter had 
boasted and Lottie had not believed him. She 
wished she had been more circumspect, and left off 
at denial. Lottie added: 

“And what did you find to talk about?” 

Marion remembered their conversation all too 


DEWY MORN 


45 

clearly. She felt at a loss. Finally she said, 
blunderingly: 

“ About whether I should stay and what money 
I wanted, and — ancient history came up somehow — 
about old Mrs. Napier.” 

Lottie looked furious. She said, passionately: 

“What has that to do with Walter? It is 
my affair and Will’s. What did he tell you 
about his mother — that she didn’t leave Will a 
penny? ” 

Marion replied, evenly: “No; he confined him- 
self to comments on her gipsy descent. He seemed 
to suspect me of quarrelling with it.” 

She strove to speak lightly; to turn the torrent of 
her sister’s gathering wrath. Lottie hated to be 
taken unawares, to find her acuteness at fault. Too 
often it provoked her into a fit of wild, unreasoning, 
ungoverned rage. It did so now. Impossible for 
Marion to say anything that would not augment 
the storm. Had she not been deceived in her 
sister? Marion to flirt — Marion! And with Wal- 
ter whom she affected to despise! Walter, who was 
Lottie’s, body and soul! 

She declaimed in a raised, shaken voice: 

“And so you do quarrel with it. You do nothing 
but despise Will, and Will’s people. You hate to 
see Margaret’s Mead in their hands — you think it’s 
polluted! Now you throw her gipsy descent at 
me — sneering at my children’s grandmother! Who 
are you likely to marry, I should like to know? Do 
you think a gentleman is likely to come your way 
because father happened — father happened ” 


46 MARGARET’S MEAD 

She choked with coughing. Marion rushed to 
her. 

“ Lottie — Lottie, dear,” she cried, in a voice of 
anguish. 

Lottie’s eyes fixed themselves on her face as she 
fought for breath; in anger first, and then in fear. 

“Oh, Marion,” she uttered, helplessly. 

Marion thought she would have given her life 
gladly to recall the last five minutes. She saw that 
the dreaded haemorrhage had begun. 

hi 

By twelve o’clock life at Margaret’s Mead had 
resumed the normal. The doctor had been and 
gone. Lottie, wan and exhausted, lay back amongst 
her pillows with no hint of the morning’s unreason- 
ing resentment in her wide, courageous eyes. 
Marion sat at needlework by the open window, all 
thought of “getting up” for Lottie definitely set 
aside. 

There had been no breakfast hour that day. 
Marion’s report had sent Walter scurrying off in his 
car to catch the doctor before he started on his 
round. Will’s anxiety had served him as food. 
Now Marion was pondering, as she sat quietly ply- 
ing her needle, whether or not at the dinner hour 
she should charge Walter with his share in causing 
the morning’s catastrophe. 

Was it worth while? she wondered. Would it 
teach him a lesson, cause him to cease his restless, 
fruitless attempts to fan Lottie’s interest in him to 
a flickering resemblance of his own fierce passion? 


DEWY MORN 


47 


Or would it but inflate his absurd vanity; tempt him 
to believe that her outburst was the fruit of passion 
rather than of pique? 

“ Lottie is not capable of passion,” argued 
Marion, clear sightedly. “ Men are just her curious, 
exciting toys! She loves Will, true. She has got 
used to him — he is good to her. And being a man 
she loves him differently from the way she loves 
me — oh, quite differently. But she wouldn’t suffer 
anguish over Will.” 

She stared in front of her, suddenly not so sure. 
She imagined circumstances, somehow getting past 
Will’s unctuousness and fat to a man who cut a 
pathetic figure. The situation had to be primitive, 
but there at last was Will, pitiable rather than 
heroic, and Lottie, agonized. But Walter — Walter, 
she decided, angrily, was not in the picture. Yet 
these men, between them, were killing Lottie. 

She brought her thoughts back and glanced 
solicitously toward her sister. Lottie smiled at 
her, and she smiled encouragingly back. 

“ First,” her thoughts ran on, “Will marries and 
starves her. Those dreadful times — and Lottie 
never strong. Pleurisy, in lodgings, with no 
money, and Will as sole nurse! Walter would 
say the mischief was begun before then. He would 
say it begun with the bad food and cold shops in 
those horrible sub-offices. Why did Lottie stay in 
such places? She was a competent telegraphist.” 
Marion knew in her heart that Lottie stayed, very 
often, because she hated to add them to the long 
list of the places her hasty temper lost her. 


48 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


All these things, the humiliating, undeniable 
facts of their lives — their poverty and dependence — 
Lottie’s candour had made hatefully familiar to the 
Napiers. So Walter could retort upon her. 

“If I could respect them,” thought Marion, “I 
would not mind their knowing. But it is like being 
naked before strangers.” 

For a few minutes she paused over thoughts of 
their chequered childhood, alternate of plenty and 
penury; over memories of her father doomed to the 
half-success that kills. She asked herself, sturdily, 
why should she not be proud of her father, of the 
talent that had raised him above the common rut? 
Why should she not joy in the clean, honest records 
of her forbears: decent folk — hard working, God 
fearing — not given to accumulation either of wealth 
or power — perhaps all the better for that — just 
simple, cleanly, useful lives, sweet and wholesome 
as home-made bread ? “Better stock,” thought 
Marion, “to be born of than long lines of ancestry 
with minds and bodies all warped and slackened by 
perpetual possession of wealth and power.” 

But ruthlessly she brought her thoughts back to 
the present. 

“This excitement, that was so bad for Lottie, yet 
which she craved, and which Walter Napier was 
alone at hand to supply, could she do anything to 
stop it at its source?” She soon recognized that 
she could not, envisaging herself by the way as 
Walter’s betrothed or Walter’s wife, and so seeing 
herself, humorously, as a source of perpetual joy 
to Lottie. What additional scope that would pro- 


DEWY MORN 


49 


vide for experiment and intrigue! Or would Lottie 
find the joy departed if imprisonment to her couch 
kept much of the developments hidden from her? 

Across these speculations how sinisterly came the 
question: “But how long will Lottie live?” 

Marion rose restlessly. Lottie said, on the 
instant: 

“ I shall want you to talk to me after dinner. 
Tell me all they say downstairs. I begin to feel 
better.” 

Marion answered: “I’ll turn myself into a news 
scavenger. Would you like me to read the paper, 
too?” 

“People’s reading voice always tires me,” 
answered Lottie, apologetically. With mock ap- 
prehension she added, mischievously, “They can’t 
read like me.” 

Marion winced at a truth. Lottie read so that 
you forgot she was reading, declining to adhere too 
strictly to the printed word, so rarely colloquial. 
She answered, however, gaily: 

“More conceit! There’s the dinner bell; I’m 
starving! I’ve tied a ribbon to your bell rope to 
bring it within easy reach. Here it is. Pull if you 
want me.” 

She caught up Bobbie to hush some noisy re- 
bellion on her way downstairs. 

IV 

When she entered the dining room two pairs of 
eyes were turned upon her in wordless interrogation. 
Marion left them unanswered. She had come to 


50 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


know that if once she allowed glances to take the 
place of words here, speech — rarely enough heard 
now — would hardly ever be vouchsafed her. 

So she took her place wordlessly, with only a smile 
to Phyllis who relieved her of Bobbie, and a brighter 
warning one to Clare who was noisily drumming 
with her spoon upon the table. 

Kate, entering from the kitchen, broke the 
silence. 

“ John and Jeames ha’ looked in, miss, please, to 
knaw if Mrs. Napier be better.” 

“Tell them ‘yes, thank you/ Kate,” said Marion. 
She was aware of two pairs of eyes hungrily search- 
ing her face. “She is rested and seems to be gain- 
ing strength again. I will tell her they enquired.” 
She saw Walter bite his thin lips as she ended, and 
the colour surge into Will’s sallow face. 

Walter spoke first. “You really think her 
better?” he asked. Will followed with: “She 
hadn’t energy to speak when I was up with her last.” 

Marion congratulated herself. She had no wish 
to be cruel, only to rouse them from a taciturnity 
with which she felt she could not live. She re- 
sponded circumspectly, forcing a grudging exchange 
of remarks, and arguing with herself: “Why should 
I let anxiety make them dumb?” 

The dining room, a bright enough room in itself, 
was rendered almost hideous by a crimson wall 
paper topped with a horrible crude border of ships 
and sunset, circling in a way to suggest delirium. 
In daylight Marion had found even the oak room 
spoilt by modern furniture and coloured prints hung 


DEWY MORN 


5i 


at random, regardless of the panelling. Now she 
looked out of the opposite window on to a gay 
flower border thanking God for its gaiety and the 
restfulness of paddock and trees beyond. 

Suddenly her brother-in-law said to her: 

“Have you seen your letter from Greyladies? ” 

An angry gust of resentment swept over Marion. 
It was not enough that she was despoiled of her 
moment of keen pleasure — that moment when, 
entering, her eyes fell upon the square of white 
lying unopened upon the table and knew that only 
her letters were left lying so: that moment of 
anticipation and hope when she never failed to re- 
member that often fate lies folded within a letter’s 
flat compass. But also she was despoiled of the 
thrill that, in this case, would have followed 
recognition. A deep flush mantled and faded in 
her cheeks. She answered, vibrantly: 

“I did not know there was one.” 

Walter reached a hand back to the sideboard, 
picked up the letter and handed it to her. She 
thought, angrily, that the whole household, save 
she and Lottie, knew of its arrival. She noticed the 
habitual sneer on Walter’s lip become pronounced. 
No need to ask how they had known whom the 
letter came from. Across the flap of the envelope 
was neatly inscribed: 

Greyladies 

She let it lie, unopened, beside her plate. 

Will remarked : 

“I should have hardly thought you’d at once rake 


52 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


up acquaintance with people who’ve ignored Lottie 
all these months. They pass her in the churchyard 
with no more than a nod.” 

“I’m not given to ‘raking up’ acquaintances,” 
replied Marion. Her colour rose again. 

Will cut his meat savagely. “You hardly expect 
me to believe that,” he said, with a jerk of his head 
toward the letter. 

Marion picked it up, her eyes shining. 

“Have you read this?” she asked, in a high, clear 
voice. 

“What d’you mean? ” His glance was menacing 
as he looked up from his plate, his fork suspended in 
air. 

“What I say,” said Marion, her tones still high 
and clear. “You speak as though you knew its 
contents.” 

“I do, but without reading it. And look here, 
my girl, don’t throw out insinuations of that sort 
here ” 

Marion interrupted. “Whom are you address- 
ing?” 

The cold fury of her voice stopped him. She 
went on, clear and incisive: 

“Learn to use my name if you address me. And 
please understand, once and for all, that I accept 
no criticism of my conduct from you in matters 
that do not concern you. As I shall certainly not 
be tempted to criticise yours.” 

The vibrations of anger were too much for a child 
of four. Clare began to cry. Will made haste to 
cover alarmed discomfiture under a show of solid- 


DEWY MORN 


S3 

tude. Walter’s sarcastic glance and smile fell 
coldly on them all. 

In this atmosphere Marion opened and read her 
letter from Greyladies. 

My dear Miss Harland, 

My nephew tells me you have come to live at Marga- 
ret’s Mead. I hope it may be true and, if so, that you 
will come and see an old woman who gets about very 
little. 

I thought I saw you at Church last week, but my 
sight is dim and I was not sure that I recognized my 
little Mary. (Excuse the liberty, but we have such 
pleasant memories of that small person.) Any day, 
save Tuesday, will find me pouring out tea at four 
o’clock, and we should be so pleased if you would join 
us as of old. 

Ever your sincere friend, 

Frances Wilson. 

This letter was fragrant — not of warehouse scent, 
but of a gray stone house where for generations 
linen had been laid away with tiny muslin bags of 
ever-fresh lavender between, in dark seasoned chests 
whose drawers ran silent and smooth. Of a house 
redolent of wood fires and pine cones and jars of pot 
pourri . . . Marion knew it well. The re- 

membered fragrance brought it back to her as 
though it were but yesterday that she had climbed 
— a tiny, thin-legged little creature — into a high 
four-poster and between the snowy, fragrant sheets. 

As the words “my little Mary” started up to 
greet her, her eyes swam in sudden tears. She 


54 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


murmured, soundlessly, “ Friend o’ my heart,” and 
then wondered where the phrase had sprung from. 

On an impulse she handed the letter to her 
brother-in-law and repented as he took it. Would 
these men of sullen jealousies but hate her more? 

For a wonder she proved to have done the right 
thing. Will grunted as he passed the letter back 
to her and said, grudgingly: 

“I suppose you’re fine and pleased?” 

“Rather,” said Marion. She added, diplomati- 
cally: “It was a change to be the favourite.” 
Instantly she hated herself for a statement both 
cringing and untrue. Why should she for ever seek 
to conciliate Lottie’s men, pandering to their ideas 
of her? Lottie had not been winsome as a child. 
Will went on: 

“It will be a bit of news for Lottie.” 

Marion said, hastily: “Please don’t tell her to- 
day. She did not get on with the Wilsons, we used 
to quarrel about them. And the least thing upsets 
her. The cause of her breakdown to-day was the 
idea that Walter and I had been discussing things 
we did not tell her about on the night I came.” 
She looked at Walter squarely. “How came you 
to let her guess that?” 

Walter ignored the question, but he whitened. 
Marion saw that he was stabbed. And Will inter- 
rupted to ask: 

“But what about the nephew?” 

“Mr. John Preston,” answered Marion. “He 
is brother to the Prestons I was in business with. 
He stayed with them while I was there.” 


DEWY MORN 


55 


“Oh,” said Will. “Him? He’s married!” 

Marion answered, briefly: “His daughter Doro- 
thea is thirteen years old.” 

“Not even a widower,” remarked Will, with what 
he took for sly humour. 

The meal was over. Marion lifted Clare down 
from her high chair. 

v 

To Marion’s intense relief Lottie was dozing 
when she returned to the sick room, and though 
she opened her eyes and languidly smiled on her 
sister’s entrance, all wish for gossip and amusement 
had obviously evaporated. Marion guessed that it 
had been no more than the warring of her energetic 
will with the weakness and lassitude she felt to be 
assailing her, but it had none the less made proble- 
matic the question of how to maintain the placid 
passivity which was her only hope of healing. 
Never had a theory been more thoroughly and un- 
wittingly exploded than that of “healing by the 
power of the mind over the body ” by the disastrous 
results of Lottie’s refusals to be ill. 

Marion quietly took her work and sat down 
between the open windows where her glance could 
stray out to the garden stretched in still beauty 
before her or to the fields and hills beyond. She 
was aware of domestic wheels running smoothly, 
oiled rather than jarred by catastrophe. There had 
been volunteers for the stripping of the currant 
bushes and Kate had offered to turn them, under 
instruction, into jelly and jam. Phyllis had taken 


MARGARET'S MEAD 


5 6 

off her charges with a dignified sense of her share of 
responsibility in ‘‘keeping the house quiet"; Marion 
felt herself the most unquiet thing there. 

Only her lambent and brooding eyes would have 
given an onlooker to guess that her nerves were 
shaken and vibrant; so daintily tinted, so demurely 
still she sat in the afternoon quietude brooding over 
the homestead. Then the garden gate creaked as it 
swung on its hinges — she started nervously as she 
looked up and out to see whom it might be. 

The newcomer was only in her view a moment. 
She turned her eyes intently upon Lottie, watching 
for her to be wakened by the ring that would 
presently follow. 

But Lottie was not awakened. The ring was 
very gentle and tentative, quite unlike the ring 
Marion expected from the man she had seen enter- 
ing at the gate. It was the ring, in fact, of one who 
had learnt to doubt the potentialities of strange 
doorbells; who was considerate for others, and who 
was very aware that there was an invalid in the 
house. 

Marion doubted if the gentle, tentative ring 
would be heard in the kitchen. She said to herself, 
smiling: 

“What a notable modification of his strength." 

Listening, she heard the kitchen door open and 
Kate's step in the hall. She heard the click of the 
withdrawn latch and then the unmistakable timbre 
of a deep, characteristic, well-remembered voice. 
She thrilled to the voice, standing intent, with her 
eyes still watchfully on Lottie’s. 


DEWY MORN 


57 

Kate came cautiously upstairs and Marion 
quietly opened the door. 

“I know,” she answered Kate’s unspoken words 
with her fingers to her lips. “Take my place, 
please, Kate, while I go down.” 

Kate detained her to say in a hoarse stage whisper 
before she tiptoed across the room : 

“It’s the baker’s day, miss. He’ll be here soon.” 

Marion answered: “I’ll see him. What do we 
want?” 

Kate’s lips framed the word “Four.” She 
reached the nearest chair, and Marion vanished, 
quietly closing the door. 


VI 

Marion had hardly gone before Lottie’s gray- 
green eyes opened languidly, with a hint of amuse- 
ment in them. She said, tranquilly: 

“I am not asleep. Who is the caller?” 

Kate looked concerned. She knew that her mis- 
tress should not talk. And she answered, hurriedly 
and fully: 

“Mr. John Preston, m’m.” 

Lottie closed her eyes again contentedly. Here 
was something fresh to think about. She repeated, 
inwardly: 

“ Preston, Preston. What do I remember about 
Preston? Was it the name of Marion’s last 
employer?” 

After a minute or two she asked, stirring a little : 

“What is he like, Kate? Does he look like a 
tradesman — a — a baker? ” 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


58 

“A baker, m’m?” repeated Kate, amazed. 
“Oh, no, m’m. He’s quite a gentleman, m’m, is 
Mr. John.” 

Lottie opened her eyes wide this time: said with 
arrested surprise: 

“Mr. John? Do you know him then?” 

“Law, yes, m’m. Mr. John, of Grey ladies.” 

Lottie stared at her; then she removed her gaze 
to the ceiling, and lay lazily ruminating. She 
remembered now — Marion had mentioned it, 
perhaps, in a letter a long time ago. Mr. Preston, 
Marion’s employer, had been nephew to Miss 
Wilson, son of the sister whose husband had known 
so many ups and downs. Mr. John was doubtless 
one of the elder brothers, who had been started in 
life before the ebb of his father’s fortunes. He 
would be the accountant — the eldest but one — 
Preston, Law, & Preston, of London and Liverpool 
— big guns in their way. Lottie soon had him 
placed. She seemed to remember him, a young 
man just married and married very young, when 
Marion and she were children running wild at 
Margaret’s Mead. A little further reflection forced 
on her the fact that in those days Marion must 
have known him well, must have been a little pet of 
his — she was always at Greyladies, in some odd 
way a chum and favourite of them all. 

So Lottie was soon absorbed in her task of piec- 
ing together scattered memories: seeing her sister 
as a quaint, serious, vivid, chattering child, a 
piquant source of amusement to her elders. Had 
Marion met John Preston at Southbay, she won- 


DEWY MORN 


59 


dered, and if so why had she not mentioned him? 
It did not occur to Lottie that interest in her 
sister’s affairs she had shown none. 

Then for an amused minute she envisaged Marion, 
her watchful eyes turned toward her, so anxious 
that the rare advent of a caller should not excite 
her. Lottie was conscious, now as then, of an 
impatient feeling of mingled gratitude and irrita- 
tion. Marion was so engrossed with that one idea! 
Though she had obviously recognized her caller she 
had done so with a single mind; there had been no 
run to the glass to be satisfied of her own appear- 
ance; only the absorbed solicitude for her sister! 

Lottie wondered, with a faint disdain: 

“ Will she never have a lover?” 


An Interlude 


i 

But whether Lottie’s particular significance was 
to be attached to the fact or not, certain it is that 
Marion did pause before the mirror in the hall. 
And as she did so she stepped back into a past in 
which Lottie had practically no existence: a past 
which grouped itself almost entirely round the man 
whom she was about to meet and those relatives 
of his who had employed her, the firm of Preston 
& Son, bakers and confectioners, of Southbay. 

Almost everything in life links itself to a tradi- 
tion fair or foul. So, to Marion, had her own 
forbears; so had the Napiers; and now in turn 
the Prestons. 

Mr. Preston, senior, had been a man of parts and 
impulses. His parts — acute business faculties — 
had enabled him to make two fortunes: his im- 
pulses had caused him to lose them. In the decline 
of his days he had espoused once more an early love 
and purchased what the family knew as a “ dough” 
business. Southbay was young then, but young 
with a youth of amazing promise. The fruition of 
that promise earned a moderate fortune for George 
Preston, and he retired at seventy on a competency, 
which he died without risking. His youngest son, 

Go 


AN INTERLUDE 


61 


George, succeeded to the business and some three 
years earlier had engaged Marion as shop assistant. 

Marion hated the business. In fact, there would 
not appear much room for initiative in selling cakes 
and buns. Moreover, the hours were long and 
holidays scarce. Shop hours eight to eight daily, 
and eleven o’clock Saturdays, with one evening off 
each week at six. No Bank holidays, and only one 
week’s holiday in the summer. Good Friday and 
Christmas day free; that is, if she cared to count as 
free a Good Friday which saw her at three in the 
morning just finishing the task of bun packing 
begun at nine o’clock the night before and, after 
three hours of sleepless rest, beginning again at six 
to start off the boys on their rounds until the last 
batch went out at nine. 

But Prestons — the up-to-date shop of shining 
mahogany, gleaming mirrors, and shining brass and 
glassware, glittering with cleanliness and tempting 
of wares — had its tradition. Marion liked the 
tradition. 

Every week railway delivery vans delivered at 
Preston’s long flat wood crates marked “eggs, with 
care”; tubs labelled carelessly “pure butter”; 
consignments of dried fruit and sugars and jams. 
The latter were matters of course, except that 
Mrs. Preston, a dainty housekeeper, never hesi- 
tated to fill at the bakehouse stores her jam dishes 
for the table. But some experience of the trade had 
taught Marion that the crates of eggs and the tubs 
of butter were unique. Five hundred eggs were 
contained in each crate and from three to six crates 


62 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


arrived weekly. They came from France — French 
eggs, but so promptly delivered and quickly con- 
sumed that they were delicious boiled or poached. 
The butter, too, was salt, but excellent sweet- 
flavoured butter, fit for household use. 

Marion was used to the doctrine: “Any fool can 
make good bread from good flour ; it takes a baker to 
make good bread from bad flour.” She preferred 
to find herself in the employ of the fool. 

George Preston gloried in his folly, as his father 
had done before him. He loved to feel that every 
cake and bun he supplied was what it pretended to 
be, and more — pure, nourishing, clean, and wholesome 
from raw material to shop window. This was the 
tradition. No straining after confections wonder- 
ful in colour, shape, and composition — particularly 
in composition; but straightforward English pastry 
cooking: light, crisp, and simple; bread appetizing 
to sight and smell and taste; cakes that proud 
housewives would fain claim to be “home made.” 

Then there were stories. One ran that on a cer- 
tain wild and inclement day when a north wind 
drove a bitter sleet past Preston’s and down the 
High Street to the sea, a carriage stopped opposite 
the shop door and after a wait the coachman 
descended to request the “shop woman” to go out 
and take an order. Out went a reluctant girl to 
stand on the curb in the storm-swept street. 

At the moment George Preston — the younger 
George — entered the shop from the bakehouse 
store. His glance — he was a silent man — took in 
the scene. He snatched coat and umbrella and 


AN INTERLUDE 


strode after his assistant, white with rage, to wrap 
round her the one and shelter her with the other. 
For a minute or two he stood, wind and sleet lashing 
his white apron round his legs in a drenched and 
flapping rag, while the lady within the carriage, 
having paused to bestow on him a momentary and 
stony stare, proceeded with her deliberate weighing 
of the respective merits of seed cake and Genoa. 

Suddenly George’s patience was exhausted. A 
look and word sent the assistant flying to the wel- 
come shelter of the shop. 

“/ will take your order, madam,” he said, “but I 
must ask you to be brief.” 

“But I prefer,” said the outraged customer, “I 
prefer the young woman. She knows my needs. 
I insist ” 

“And I prefer,” said George Preston, quite 
evenly, “her health to your custom.” He closed 
his umbrella. The lady called in a sharp voice: 
“Coachman, drive on.” 


ii 

Mrs. George Preston was pretty and young; with 
shining hair, not unlike Marion’s, only longer, 
thicker, exceedingly fine and strong. She could 
robe herself in it, as in a shining garment reaching 
below her knees, no break or division occurring in its 
fine, shining splendour. A round baby face and 
gray eyes dancing under curling dark lashes belied 
one of the shrewdest business brains in Southbay. 
Marion liked Mrs. Preston; they were frequent 
companions: for the encroachments of the business 


6 4 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


on the house room made it necessary that the two 
shop assistants should share with the mistress the 
household duties, since there was no accommodation 
left for a servant, nor room for them to have 
separate board; and this engendered an intimacy 
which in Marion’s case was extended, through 
similarity of tastes and views, to a fair amount of 
companionship out of doors. 

So it was that when, in the third year of Marion’s 
stay with them, Mrs. Preston somewhat suddenly 
decided to undergo a long-talked-of operation, the 
management of the house, as well as of the shop and 
office, fell to Marion’s share. The second assistant 
was her senior in years but junior in position and 
ability, as well as a comparative newcomer. Marion 
felt herself suddenly of tremendous use and im- 
portance. 

She was up early, with a busy sense of things to be 
done, on the day arranged for Mrs. Preston’s de- 
parture to a Nursing Home, but Mr. Preston was 
down before her, and had taken the letters into the 
breakfast room — the breakfast room being, in 
point of fact, general living room, sitting room, and 
office. It was none the less a well-ordered, comely 
room, and Marion followed her employer in, intent 
on preparing it for breakfast. 

He was moodily staring at a letter and failed to 
respond to her “Good morning.” But as she was 
passing him he put out his hand abstractedly, de- 
taining her. 

Marion waited. 

“I’ve got a facer,” he said, collecting himself. 


AN INTERLUDE 


65 

“Mrs. Preston will be down in a minute. We 
didn’t receive this letter till she’d gone — it came 
by the second post, mind. Run up to the bake- 
house for some water as soon as you can, I want to 
speak to you.” 

He hurried off through the yard and up the 
brick stairs to the bakehouse before Marion had 
time to realize her amaze. 

It was half an hour before she could find a need 
for hot water — the house drew its supplies from the 
bakehouse boilers — and climbed the slippery brick 
steps with her bucket. For Preston’s was built on 
the steep slope of a hill, and had two distinct ground 
levels, the bakehouse being built on the higher, 
and conveniently abutting on a back street from 
whence the carts could load. When at last she did 
so, George Preston thrust the letter into her hand. 

“There’s the result of keeping a spare bedroom 
instead of having a maid in the house,” said he. 

Marion read : 

Dear Rosa, 

I wonder if you can put me up for a week-end? I 
want breathing time to find good rooms for a long stay, 
and from ’phone replies Southbay seems pretty full. 
Don’t worry if it’s at all inconvenient. I can get a 
room of sorts at the Cecil. 

I shall look in upon you about lunch time: train arriv- 
ing 12:5. 

We’re all overworked here. I’m lucky enough to be 
ordered rest. 

Yours affectionately, 
John. 


66 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“My brother,” remarked George Preston, grimly. 
“Not a word to Rosa. It would worry her to 
death.” 

“But ” began Marion. 

George Preston interrupted with a man’s calm 
unreason. 

“He hasn’t been here for four years, so we’re 
bound to do him well. You must get Mrs. What’s- 
her-name to stay all day. I shall be back from the 
Nursing Home before he comes.” 

Marion closed her lips on the truth that Mrs. 
What’s-her-name — the indispensable charwoman — 
couldn’t stay, and closed them on every other 
protest. She felt oddly elate. Would Mr. John 
remember her? Would she recognize him? 

hi 

The whole firm — as the employees were wont 
to term themselves, collectively — knew that Mr. 
John was coming before Mrs. Preston left the 
house at ten, but she left it in blissful ignorance. 
Her husband escorted her to the Home and left her 
with a promise to be back on the premises at the 
time of the operation at three; after which he turned 
his thoughts anxiously toward his brother’s re- 
ception, and wished domestic excitements would 
not overlap. 

During his absence the bakehouse, from foreman 
to errand-boy, had been reviving recollections or 
amassing information as to who and what Mr. 
John happened to be. 


AN INTERLUDE 


67 

He was not the Member of Parliament — no, that 
was Mr. Robert, the eldest brother. Mr. John was 
the one that married the partner's daughter, and 
she drank, and that kept him back. He was the 
wealthiest, though; rather quiet; not so much 
push in him as in Robert. His wife was a terror; 
she 

The voices dropped and the speakers huddled 
together. Snatches of the gossip came down to the 
other assistant in the shop. Marion felt the talk 
going on. It at once excited and displeased her. 
She had known Mr. John so well! 

So far she had made little of the fact to her 
employers, because Mr. George, it seemed, had not 
cared for Greyladies, had visited there only once, 
and spoke of Miss Frances merely as very old and 
frail. He had never heard of Margaret's Mead 
or Marion’s uncle David; and the chances of her 
meeting his brother who had known both were so 
remote that Marion had dropped the subject. But 
that had not prevented her from learning all she 
could of him. 

Mrs. Preston had given her his domestic history 
— in detail — more than once. She had dwelt on 
the squalor of a splendid house where no decent 
maids would stay and where those who did stay 
pandered to and fattened on the vice of its mistress. 
Cupboards stuffed with bottles; rooms degraded 
with the filth of beastly habits; faked trading ac- 
counts covering secretly obtained supplies; debts, 
and waste, and occasional horrible public scenes. 
These were the broad lines, with details a healthy 


68 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


mind sickened over, and running through them the 
record of a man’s vain shifts and expedients, taking 
the place of hope outworn and effort frustrated, to 
give to the outside of life at least a seemly and 
decent appearance. 

But the story, as Marion heard it, never once gave 
to her view the man she remembered. When she 
last saw him fourteen years ago, at Greyladies, he 
had been but a short time married. Marion re- 
membered his wife as an imposing figure, tall, large, 
lazy, and languid, with melting eyes and ripe lips; 
carelessly but handsomely dressed. She recalled 
him as young, prosperous, quiet but decided; reso- 
lute in speech and manner, with a low-toned voice 
and humorous mouth. To her he was a tease, but 
kind. He told her puzzling stories that left her 
dubious as to their deserving tears or laughter; 
he seemed very fond and proud of his wife, and 
Marion had been conscious of a petted child’s 
vague jealousy. 

She remembered some of his stories; she knew 
now that they were mostly meet for tears, the smile 
in them always a smile awry. And she pictured the 
grave teller watching her childish face for its de- 
tection of the comic, and merging its gravity into 
something very tender when he saw little-hoped- 
for perplexity chasing the smile away. 

Then he would rise and say to Aunt Frances: 
“Mary grows up too soon.” And his wife would 
reply, yawning: “Your tales are enough to make 
her. Why, I can’t understand them!” And 
Marion would return to her book and he to his 


AN INTERLUDE 69 

wife’s pleasure while the shadow of the tall elm 
crept across the sunny lawn. 

IV 

All lunch time — or dinner time, as Marion more 
correctly called it — John Preston’s glance strayed 
perpetually to the tantalizingly familiar face. 
Where had he seen it? Had he caught George’s 
introduction aright? Was she a relative of Rosa’s 
and was it therefore a haunting resemblance to 
Rosa he was tracing in the sweet and serious face, 
as well as in the shining bright hair? 

George Preston had quite forgotten Marion’s 
mention of having met his brother, and noticed the 
latter’s unconcealable interest with chuckling de- 
light. 

“John shall hear of this from me, presently,” 
thought he. “I just wish Rosa was here!” 

Marion, for her part, composed many little for- 
mal sentences which never reached her lips. For 
this, she found, was her Mr. John of Greyladies very 
little altered: only graver, older, and with a slightly 
cynical turn to the humour of his lips. He still 
looked strong and resolute and self-respecting — the 
last was the accented attribute, for under the in- 
fliction of such whips as she had heard of Marion 
had imagined that self-respect must fly. And she 
longed to speak to him; to extract the teasing 
malice from her employer’s amused glances, yet 
those very glances kept her mute. 

The ordeal of lunch was at last over. As a meal 
it had been, to Marion’s relief, a distinct success. 


70 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


She rose, wondering how she should clear the table 
if Mr. John held the door for her every time she 
came in — his sister-in-law would have disposed of 
him in one brief sentence. Then Mr. George came 
to her relief with: 

“Come and have a cigar upstairs, old chap.” 

Marion looked up quickly, tension over. Mr. 
John caught the look, and with sudden pleased 
recognition said, quickly: 

“You are Mary. Of course you are Mary: 
Mary, of Margaret’s Mead.” 

He held out his hand; then, impulsively, both 
hands. 

George said, deliberating: “So that’s the 
story.” 

He was perhaps a trifle disappointed. It would 
have been a new sensation to catch John in a fault, 
intrigued by a shop assistant’s pretty face. The 
true solution was prosaic enough! Yet at heart he 
was glad to retain his picture of his brother whole: 
relieved to know him still so singularly free from the 
temptations that might be imagined to wait on his 
married, unmarried state. 

John had added to his greeting: “But perhaps 
you have forgotten Margaret’s Mead? ” 

Marion answered, quickly: “Oh, no, nothing of 
it. You see, it was my childhood. There was 
nothing to remember in my London home.” 

John questioned, with raised brows: “Nothing to 
remember?” 

“Not in the house,” said Marion, misunder- 
standing, “nor in the district where we lived. 


AN INTERLUDE 71 

Rows of drab houses, utterly ugly and utterly 
monotonous/’ 

“I know,” said John, and smiled. “I remember 
drawing a description of it from you, before. 
Everything remembered, but nothing treasured?” 

She caught the correction and flushed with 
pleasure. This was exactly her friend of old time. 
There was a passing allusion to her being busy now 
— they must have a talk later — as he followed his 
brother to the drawing room, where a fire was 
kindled in his honour. 


v 

When the brothers had sunk into chairs, one 
each side of the hearth, for it was chill March, John 
asked, ruminatively: 

“And what do you make of little Mary?” 

“Good business woman,” George answered, 
briefly. “‘Unexceptional references’ kind of girl.” 

“That all?” asked John, laconically. 

“As far as I’m concerned. Rosa makes a pal of 
her. Quite above the average of her class, of 
course. You know all that.” 

“Yes, I know that,” replied John. He proffered 
his cigar case. “Aunt Frances was very fond of 
her. She comes of good stock.” 

George flashed round on him and John hastened 
to add: 

“Yeoman stock, very sturdy and upright. A sort 
of aristocracy of character — not, so far as I know, the 
tag-end of old nobility. You’re lucky to get her.” 

“So Rosa says.” 


72 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“You speak as though you reserve judgment,” 
said John, eyeing his brother curiously. 

“Perhaps I do.” The cigar was an excellent one 
and George Preston gave a long pause to a full 
appreciation of it. Then he went on as though its 
subtle stimulant made him garrulous. 

“Most of the girls I’ve met — those we’ve had 
here — I’ve summed up pretty quickly, once for all. 
There’s the girls who are on the look-out for evil 
and prepared to resent it, or laugh at it, or court it, 
as the case may be. There are the girls who don’t 
look out for it — don’t think of it — and avoid it or 
court it when it comes ” 

John Preston interrupted ruminatively: 

“I see. That point of view. And exactly what 
sort of evil do you think it politic to put in their 
way? ” 

George reddened, glancing at his brother sus- 
piciously. Then his look cleared, he laughed 
frankly. 

“None whatever, as you have guessed. But one 
likes to speculate, to experiment. A straw shows 
which way the wind blows. Now if I’m hurrying 

behind Miss Harland While I think of it, 

you mustn’t call her Mary here.” 

“Noted,” said his brother. “Go on with your 
instance.” 

“Well, if I’m behind her in the dark store and I 
just catch her arm and squeeze it — what does she 
do? When we get into the light is she flushed, or 
cross, or scornful, or flattered . . .” He gave 

a wave of his hand. 


AN INTERLUDE 


73 


“Well,” said John; “ which is she?” 

“Neither,” said George, impressively. “Nothing 
at all. Not a tremor. As though I had dreamt 
that squeeze of her arm!” He looked resentful. 
“What can a man make of a girl like that?” 

A smile hovered round John Preston’s lips, but 
he repressed it. Instead he leant forward to the 
fire, knocking away the ash of his cigar, and after 
a moment asked, with quiet deliberation: 

“It never strikes you, I suppose, as rather a 
blackguardly thing to do?” 

George flushed warmly, but he laughed — a little 
forcedly. 

“Hardly,” he said, “or we’ll suppose I shouldn’t 
do it.” 

“It occurs to me,” said John, “that even an 
average girl couldn’t be quite her natural self — with 
her employer.” 

“Oh, hang it,” said George. He looked genuinely 
disturbed. “As you put it ” 

“Not at all,” said his elder brother. “As, my 
dear fellow, you for the first time see it.” 

And then George laughed; not quite a nice laugh, 
for his brother caught him on the raw. 

“Would you have seen it quite so soon,” he sug- 
gested, “if the girl in question hadn’t been Aunt 
Frances’s little Mary?” 

If John Preston hoped his brother would change 
his ways he was mistaken. Heedless, harmless, 
pleasure-loving George thought no more about it, 
secure in his warm heart and good intentions. So 
the day came when John witnessed the small 


74 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


comedy — his brother running up the bakehouse 
stairs behind Marion, and catching her arm gently 
as he drew level with her. 

John, glancing up from his paper in the breakfast 
room, saw how unmistakably that gentle grasp 
caressed. He got up leisurely, and leisurely 
climbed the steps behind them. 

There was much noise and chatter in the bake- 
house, and neither Marion nor George looked back. 
So John caught, momentarily, Marion’s expression 
as his brother passed into the bakehouse, and she 
waited outside for what she had come to fetch. 

No phlegmatic, unobservant face this; but vi- 
brant, interested, faintly scornful rather than 
resentful. Nearly enough what John Preston had 
expected to see, yet surprising him slightly with the 
quality or fulness of its self-reliant poise. Marion’s 
look might have meant that she was excellently 
entertained! 

All this he caught in a breathing-space; in the next 
George brought to Marion the cake she had come 
for. John saw expressionless calm drop over the 
girl’s features like a mask, and he saw his brother’s 
eyes — half-amused, half-resentful — scan the mask. 

Then George’s glance fell on his brother saunter- 
ing toward him, and Marion looked up. She 
passed him, smiling, and ran downstairs on her 
errand, suddenly humming a gay tune. 

VI 

It was when his interest had progressed so far, to 
the point of adventures and discoveries, that John 


AN INTERLUDE 


75 

Preston fell ill. On the manner of his falling ill 
Marion always looked back with mingled feelings, 
compound of the desire to laugh and the wish to 
admire. 

The bakehouse steps have been described with 
intent. Marion hated them. In dry weather 
they were uneven and steep, in wet so slimy and 
slippery as to constitute a snare. More than once 
a score of warm cakes had scattered themselves in 
fragrant fragments over the brick yard, while a 
hapless baker cursed his luck and feelingly rubbed 
his shins. Marion had sprained her ankle in a too- 
swift descent and slopped more pails of water than 
she could remember. 

John Preston hated to see the girls adventuring, 
laden, down the slippery steps — especially Marion, 
who seemed to have forgotten the way to move 
slowly and tripped down at an obviously hazardous 
rate. On this particular occasion he was in the 
bakehouse, talking to his brother, when she ar- 
rived with her bucket for hot water. 

She kept her face studiously turned from him 
while the foreman filled it and left with a gay 
“ Thank you, Linton,” hoping that so she would 
escape Mr. Preston’s notice and his half-absent- 
minded, half-instinctive attentions. 

But she did not, for he drew his conversation to a 
close as she left the bakehouse and arrived at the 
top of the stairs before her to say, in his quiet, un- 
evadable way: 

“Allow me.” 

Marion surrendered her bucket perforce, but 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


76 

more annoyed than grateful. She paused behind 
him with an impatient tap of her foot and bite of her 
lip, feeling that his action was quixotic and not 
really commendable on the score of either tact or 
sense. Since bucket-carrying was incidental to her 
means of earning a living, buckets she must carry! 
The point of view appealed to John Preston when 
he had gone down three steps, and he turned to her 
with a laughing remark intended to carry off the — 
perhaps pardonable — stupidity of his action. 

As it happened it carried off much more. He for- 
got entirely the uncertain ground under his feet and 
took the remainder of the flight of stairs at one step. 
Marion, watching the catastrophe, was paralyzed 
between instinctive laughter and blank dismay — 
quite ludicrous dismay at so much dignity over- 
thrown and a sense of her sheer inability to rise to 
the occasion. 

With a very red face she watched her knight- 
errant pick himself up, and then ran nimbly down 
the steps as though she had just perceived that 
he had — let us say — stumbled. 

She asked him, with heroic gravity: 

“Are you hurt?” 

He laughed. “The mischief is I have thrown 
away your water,” he replied, shaking himself, 
“Hurt? No, of course not. All the same, these 
steps are — murderous ! ” 

“You are bound to be badly shaken,” Marion 
said. She was smiling frankly now as she brought 
a towel for the wiping-down process. He shrugged 
his shoulders. 


AN INTERLUDE 


77 


“ George shall pay for this,” he said. “No peace 
for him till those steps are concreted. Thanks. 
Oh, don’t trouble. Now for the water.” 

“Oh, no, please not,” said Marion. “I don’t 
really want it. There’s no time now before lunch.” 

She was agreeably surprised that he conceded the 
point, and, finding the clock on the stroke of one, 
went straight into the breakfast room to await his 
brother. But as the meal proceeded her surprise 
changed its quality. She observed that Mr. John 
played with his food, crumbling his bread and tast- 
ing little; that he accepted Burgundy and drank 
it at a draught, which was not his habit; that his 
remarks were infrequent and replies absent. 

There was a jest about his fall, of course: not too 
sustained, because Marion quickly changed the 
subject. By the time lunch was over she was 
genuinely uneasy. In her housewifely capacity she 
laid tentative fingers on Mr. John’s sleeve. 

“Your coat is wet through,” she remarked then, 
hastily. “I am sure you ought to change it at 
once.” 

“What’s that?” said George, looking up. “Did 
you get the water over you, then?” 

“A veritable Jordan,” replied his brother. “ The 
doctrine of complete immersion — a Baptist busi- 
ness.” Then he answered Marion’s anxious glance. 
“I will, Miss Harland, to relieve you. At once.” 

As he went upstairs Marion said to Mr. George, 
with a worried air: 

“I wish you would make sure that he is not hurt.” 

“Hurt!” echoed George Preston, pausing in- 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


78 

credulously in the act of lighting a cigarette. “How 
could he be hurt? ” 

Marion answered, annoyed: “Very easily. And 
I’m sure he is. He has eaten nothing.” 

George Preston looked exasperated. The brick 
steps were a constant bone of contention. He 
knew they were dangerous; he knew he ought to 
have them seen to. But then on the slightest 
provocation to be irritated with remarks like 
this ... it would try the patience of a saint! 
He turned to go back to his bakehouse, throwing his 
cigarette away in his disgust. 

Marion remarked: 

“I hear Mr. John calling you, sir.” 

He looked at her sharply. It was not in the 
convention that she should call him “sir” and he 
suspected temper. But as the call came more 
imperiously he put Marion from his thoughts and 
ran upstairs. 

Marion had not been mistaken in thinking that 
toward the end of the meal Mr. John had shivered 
as with fever, but she had been at sea as to 
the cause, concluding he had taken cold. When 
George ran, still irritable, into his brother’s room, 
he was confronted with a sight that turned him 
faint. 

Mr. John extended a bared arm to him. He was 
shivering now, obviously: his face looked blue and 
shrivelled and his voice had a shrewish note. 

“What can we do for this,” he said, “it’s a scald. 
When I took off my sleeve the infernal skin came 
with it.” 


AN INTERLUDE 


79 


“ Why the world ” began George, and stopped. 

The conviction rushed on him that this was a serious 
matter. He called down to Marion, with a note of 
panic in his voice, to send old Linton up with reme- 
dies and sickened to find the extent of the surface 
injury as he helped to rip away his brother's 
clothes. 

“I didn't think the water was hot enough,” 
was all John remarked further. The sense of illness 
grew on him as he submitted, childlike, to old 
Linton's simple bakehouse remedy, a compress of 
creamy slaked yeast. But Linton whispered to his 
master, outside the door: 

“The burn’s over too big an area, sir. I should 
'phone for a doctor. This is a doctor's job." 

And George did 'phone without delay. But 
whether shock was responsible, or whether it was a 
natural sequence to the nervous exhaustion that had 
brought him to Southbay, or a combination of the 
two, certain it is that pneumonia held John Preston 
at death grips before the dawn of the next day. 

VII 

When threatening Death follows close in the wake 
of an accident that was first simply ludicrous and 
then trifling, it is apt by force of sharp contrast to 
gain a portentous tragic air. This was the case 
at Preston's. Accounts of the incident, glimpsed 
by some and fully witnessed by others, had run up 
and down the house to the accompaniment of 
ripples of mirth during the hour of the victim's 
self-impatient silence. And when at the end of 


8o 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


that time half-incredulous fear took the place of 
mirth, recent lightheartedness seemed to act as a 
sharp irritant to the nerves. 

Especially was this true of Marion, who imagined 
herself to have penetrated below the quiet, but 
kind and courteous, exterior which won John 
Preston liking everywhere, to a depth and ripeness 
of nature that others dreamt not of; and, besides, 
to her own personal, intimate niche in his regard. 

It annoyed her that an hour ago she could have 
been amused, convulsed with laughter, over an ac- 
cident that had its root in a simple act of courtesy 
to herself, and that now assumed an aspect so 
menacing. For the time being all sense of humour 
and proportion left her. That so wretched an 
accident should lay at peril this valuable life!. 

Such became the burden of her cry, and not of 
hers alone. George Preston worshipped the sane, 
cool judgment that in his sage brother was linked 
to so wide and easy a tolerance. Or, at least, he 
worshipped it now. Should John recover he would 
state his admiration, even to himself, in other terms. 
But for the present he must measure and remeasure, 
still with an incredulity of horror, the extent of his 
possible loss. 

In his panic he sent out messages for a hasty 
gathering of the clans, Edward from Liverpool, his 
father from Swindon, little Dorothea, John’s only 
child, from school at Scarborough. Marion, always 
in his confidence and always his right hand, with 
difficulty kept herself from sharing his affright. 

Four days, five days passed of breathless arrivals, 


AN INTERLUDE 


8 1 


whispering voices, nurses, doctors, taxis, telephones, 
and telegrams. Prestons of all sorts, sizes, and 
descriptions seemed for ever arriving and departing; 
pompous Prestons, modest Prestons, fat, lean, silent, 
or wheezy Prestons: Prestons who accepted Marion 
simply and treated her with friendship; Prestons 
who ignored her; Prestons who imagined her their 
servant. But all with an air of solemnity and 
importance and a tendency to talk in lowered 
tones. 

Marion, moving quiet and capable among them, 
from their treatment of her drew her silent inference 
as to their character; feeling, beneath her look of 
occupied reserve, each minute difference of tone 
and look and word as an assault upon her nerves, 
which responded, shocked, quivering, vibrant, to 
pleasure or hurt. 

Not least did they respond, fretted and indignant, 
to the consciousness that to the major part of this 
prosperous, moneyed family of many ramifications 
death was an exciting as well as an important event. 

The John Preston she knew and over whose 
labouring vitality these strangers spent their whis- 
pering eloquence, with conjectures and prophecies 
and confidences, seemed so aloof from all the 
pompous ferment, fighting disease in the quiet room 
where nurses stepped softly, aiding the battle with 
businesslike fingers and tepid sponges. Between 
the comedy and tragedy of it Marion’s nerves wore 
thin; she caught herself wishing that she could spirit 
Mr. John away — say to be nursed back to life by 
Miss Frances at quiet Greyladies. 


82 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


But at last the day came when twelve-year-old 
Dorothea was allowed to see her father. She came 
back to Marion subdued, and rather frightened, 
the grim reality of illness impressing her for the 
first time: “He is so thin, so old; I am sure I 
mustn’t go back to school till he is better. Do you 
really think he will get well? ” She appealed with 
soft sweet eyes swimming in tears: Marion loved 
her for the tears: she had thought the vain, gay, 
chattering child quite heartless. But now she 
kissed her, and Dorothea prettily permitted herself 
to be kissed and comforted. She was really a soft- 
hearted child; not warm-hearted; a very different 
matter. And Marion added to her own perplexi- 
ties then and thereafter through failure to make 
that rather nice distinction. 

VIII 

When Mrs. Preston returned from the Nursing 
Home she proceeded suavely, with a kind and 
practical woman’s strange blindness, to throw her 
brother-in-law and Marion together. John had 
reached years of discretion; he was married; more- 
over, he was both preeminently sane and a gentle- 
man. And Marion . . . Marion was her 

friend; she was also her assistant! Marion was 
pretty; yes, admitted and admitted proudly. But 
not only was Marion a proud and sensible girl, but 
she was also — also — not attractive to men; not 
attractive in that way. Mrs. Preston had more 
than once remarked this fact to her husband as 
really quite peculiar, seeing Marion was so pretty, 


AN INTERLUDE 


83 

and George Preston had mumblingly assented, 
thanking kind heaven for a shrewd woman’s folly. 
Still he conceded that he found Marion cold. 

Mrs. Preston, be it said, never even to herself 
stated a case about her brother-in-law and Marion. 
The idea never occurred to her. But so she certainly 
would have stated it had an outsider suggested to 
her a doubt. As for Marion, her view of John 
Preston so far coincided with that of her friend. To 
her also he was married and a gentleman, though 
Marion would have stated it as married and good. 
Unfortunately for Marion, her conception of good- 
ness eliminated the man. 

John Preston was frankly pleased. Marion 
stimulated him; her beauty charmed and her 
intelligence intrigued him. When Rosa said that 
Miss Harland had had too much responsibility, 
was on the verge of a breakdown, and must there- 
fore turn from businesss to the domestic side of 
life, he sedulously agreed with her. For he found 
that this dictum threw upon Marion the meticulous 
dusting of the thousand and one trifles in the banal 
drawing room in which he spent his convalescent 
days; it sent her up to him with trays, with papers, 
with letters; it exonerated him from blame if he 
detained her in talk and argument. 

It was during those weeks of John’s convalescence 
that the scheme of a South Coast A.B.C. was 
hatched. George Preston had made up his mind 
to retire from business early; the fact that one or 
two businesses in near towns came simultaneously 
into the market gave his ideas a trend; and 


8 4 MARGARET’S MEAD 

John was opportunely at hand for discussion and 
advice. 

Rosa was too shrewdly interested to be left out 
of the discussion, and Rosa’s talkative friendship 
brought in Marion. Marion’s very ignorance stood 
her in good stead for, allied as it was to an intelli- 
gence far above the average, it caused her to ask 
the most pertinent questions. There was formed a 
keen and eager council of four, at first never meet- 
ing as such. Rosa discussed the question with 
Marion as it affected herself, with absolute un- 
reserve, proud of her knowledge and acumen and 
possessions; George discussed it with her grumpily, 
simply hoping that the girl might be tempted by his 
confidence to a warmer view of him; John discussed 
it with her because he had a very calm appreciation 
of the value of an outside point of view; and, latterly 
because he wished to find a niche for Marion in it. 
But each of the trio discussed it with her separately, 
almost unaware that the others did so, too. 

John Preston hated waste and he saw Marion’s 
abilities as wasted absolutely. Trivial things had 
given her to his views as possessed of method, will, 
energy, and, above all, initiative. He saw that she 
preferred to do things differently from other people 
and that it was a positive necessity to her that she 
should do them better. Order she delighted in; her 
one failing — and a grave one — was a dislike of de- 
puting any one of her jobs to another. She had 
yet to learn the art of setting herself free for that 
hardest task of organizing calmly and efficiently 
while others do the work. 


AN INTERLUDE 


85 

Marion earned £16 a year and her laundry and 
keep. On the face of things she was worse off than 
a servant — worse off than many of her fellows. But 
she had advantages. Some were comprised in the 
things that spelt “ Preston’s” to her, some consisted 
in a definite and specific comfort of living and 
habitation, and some in opportunity. John Pres- 
ton took it into his head to enlarge to her upon her 
opportunities and, in doing so, to amplify them. 
Without seeming to teach, he assiduously taught 
her, and Marion learned very fast. 

For the first time in his life he became aware of 
the paucity of the opportunities open to women; 
the meanness of their emoluments, the few paths to 
success. Marion, and women like Marion, might 
be a clerk, a teacher, a shop assistant, a nurse, or — 
a tradeswoman. He ran over the possibilities of the 
vocations and paused over the last. As a clerk she 
might, if she were very lucky, earn ninety pounds a 
year — he had heard of rare women holding secre- 
tarial engagements at £150. As teacher she might 
reach that figure, but Marion was too old to train as 
a teacher; as a shop assistant, if she became a buyer 
or manageress, she might, with great luck, earn 
£100 a year and her keep; as a nurse somewhere 
about the same figure. But for all her exceptional 
abilities, the possibilities were that Marion, left 
unassisted and unadvised, would continue to 
accept a tolerably congenial post at the nominal 
salary she got now. He knew the sort of thing 
that in the large business houses would retard and 
repel her. But he said to himself that she must 


86 


MARGARET'S MEAD 


desire the big things, that he must teach her, that 
she must not settle down to drudgery and £20 a 
year for ever. She must become a manageress — 
why not of a branch of the South Coast A.B.C. — 
why not of this branch, which she had practically 
managed already? Why not eventually, with the 
help of directors and auditors, organizing secretary, 
with an assured position, and an increasing salary? 
Why not, at long last, proprietress? She was 
ridiculously capable; and she was Aunt Frances's 
pet and protegee — little Mary of Margaret's Mead. 

Did it occur to him that she might marry? If so, 
doubtless he smiled sagely, but sadly, leaving that 
event to make way for itself. 

IX 

Not all at once did John Preston reach his con- 
clusions, nor when he had, did he confide them to 
his brother and Rosa, nor even to Marion. Instead 
he set himself to work to do much by suggestion; 
so skilfully, that it was Rosa and no other who 
first saw in Marion an ideal manageress for the 
Southbay branch of the A.B.C. 

John demurred; she was not old enough: her 
experience too limited. Rosa was exasperated with 
his prejudiced and finicking objections; even George 
was roused to slow protest. And, as John had 
quietly foreseen, the project commended itself to 
Rosa as a means whereby she need not at once lose 
actual touch with the happenings in the business 
she had helped to build. For as the weeks of 
John's long, slow convalescence slipped by, the 


AN INTERLUDE 87 

South Coast A.B.C. tended to become ever more 
and more of a reality and less of a dream. 

As John also foresaw, Rosa could not keep to her- 
self this side issue, of so much moment to Marion. 
She was deeply excited about it; very soon Marion 
was deeply excited, too, and then John Preston be- 
gan to reap his reward. Marion at last became 
openly one of the circle of four. The animated 
discussions of schemes and projects were thrown 
open to her. A very intimate circle it tended to 
become. 

What a pleasure it had for him, the seemingly 
dry man of business, to whom business had never 
ceased to be an adventure and a delight! To watch 
the young mind, with all the expansiveness and 
enthusiasm of youth, opening eagerly to the new 
impressions. Grasping the meaning and power of 
capital, its uses and sane employment; the place of 
labour, the use and abuse of advertisement; the 
waste of thriftless saving, and the economy of 
lavish expenditure. Then to think in terms of 
thousands of pounds — she who had thought in 
units; and suddenly to be brought back again to 
calculations involving the fraction of a penny. 
Phrases like “site values,” “commission on sales or 
profits,” “dividends,” and “issues of stock” floated 
through her dreams and became familiar to her 
waking thoughts. She seemed like a sponge, ab- 
sorbing commercial facts at every pore; but, unlike 
a sponge, remaining unfilled and undistended. 

In May, a fortnight after John Preston’s return 
to London, Marion left Southbay on his advice to 


88 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


learn something of the working of company’s shops 
at a branch in Aldwich. By then the South Coast 
A.B.C. was well on the way to becoming an 
accomplished fact: the near businesses had been 
bought and the first legal steps taken. She had 
been at Aldwich seven weeks when Lottie’s letter 
summoned her to Margaret’s Mead. 


To Pensive Eve 


i 

Preston’s was present to Marion as she made her 
brief pause in the hall — a conglomeration of pictures 
in which the man she was about to meet figured 
largely. Then she opened the oak-room door and 
closed it behind her, and suddenly the things John 
Preston represented flooded her mind to the ex- 
clusion of all besides. 

He came toward her with outstretched hand of 
greeting — a tall, erect, distinguished-looking man in 
well-cut gray flannels. Instantly his mental image 
was restamped upon Marion’s brain with precision. 
She recognized anew all the things in his appearance 
she had valued; and she knew they were precisely 
the things she missed in Lottie’s men. 

It was not the clothes, nor the well-tended hands, 
nor even the ease of manner that she cared for, 
surely, but it was what these things stood for. 
They were allied in her eyes to the taste and re- 
finement and culture of the mind that chose them. 
In the next moment she had done with sophistries 
and acknowledged to herself, honestly, that even 
for themselves she liked them. And swiftly, on a 
new viewpoint, when their owner began to speak, 
she declared inwardly that they were less than 
89 


90 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


nothing — that she must have liked the speaker, for 
the mere quality of his voice, had she been blind. 

Of such things — values, readjustments, appre- 
ciations — the interview to Marion mainly consisted, 
underlying and overwhelming the spoken word; 
words which afterward she recalled hungrily, and 
rejoiced to find memory had stored for her. 

While John Preston spoke of the beauty of the 
old and gracious room: the blue light given back by 
the oak panels; their age and date, and the more 
recent carving — embellishing conjecture with anec- 
dote and legend — Marion was gloating over the 
richness of this addition to the pattern of her life 
at Margaret’s Mead. How starved she had been 
that an accent, an inflection of voice, a point of view, 
could seem a feast so rich! 

Then that curious inner voice began to tell her, 
swiftly, that just so had places and things been 
enriched for her, she all unwitting, at Southbay. 
The glamour and romance of trade, had it existed 
for her before John Preston came? Had it not been, 
indeed, his mere handling of it that had given it 
back to her, informed with adventure and with life? 
Had he not made her abilities real to her, her career 
to matter to her, her self infinitely more self- 
respecting and self-assured? 

So now, as indeed she had known he would, he 
gave this dear house, this mellow room back to her 
exploited but enriched. The delight it had for her 
examined, explained, and rendered a thousand 
times more real. Her heart expanded in silent 
gratitude and gladness. 


TO PENSIVE EVE 


9i 


The interview was really brief. Miss Frances, it 
seemed, had heard with dismay of Lottie's illness — 
Walter Napier’s under-carter lived in a cottage 
near Greyladies — and realized with yet more dis- 
may how hardly her failure to identify Lottie might 
have been judged by her neighbours. So she made 
her nephew her envoy and he explained the matter 
to Marion; Marion, who seemed to answer so under- 
standingly and whose mind was actually concerned 
with matters so different. 

And of what, to John Preston, did his call consist? 
Of a very real appreciation of a mellow room in oak, 
fitly shrined in a long-loved house of artistic gable 
ends? Of an instinctive longing to consign to a 
dust heap the plush and bamboo of Lottie’s bric-a- 
brac? Of an appreciation of Marion’s girlish grace 
in the farmhouse setting? 

It consisted of none of these, though all were 
there. It consisted in an unreasoning pleasure in 
the quality of their greeting; a mutual instinctive 
gladness of lip and eye. It consisted of a troubled 
backward glance to the days of Marion’s childhood: 
of chidden hope and rebellious strong desire. He 
saw the girl painfully, feeling he dare not see her, 
and through that mist of pain saw her the more 
clearly. 

Absence and enforced idleness and insane, pleased 
retrospection had done this for him, he thought. 
A madness of brain and sense that contact and 
friendly intimacy would dispel. Open air, the 
sweet serenity of his aunt, the gracious calm of 
Greyladies, here were atmospheres to quell a rising 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


9 2 

passion in. An intimate, sweet friendship — this 
Fate offered him. And when they parted Marion’s 
hand would rest again in his! 

So variously, he argued, and kept his speech cool, 
and maintained his attitude of friendly adviser and 
well-wisher. Spoke of Aldwich, and Marion’s un- 
foreseen experiences there; claimed a full account of 
them at their next meeting. 

a And when are you coming?” he asked, on the 
point of departure. 

Marion considered; thought possibly to-morrow; 
promised as much if Lottie were no worse. 

“I am still sorry,” said John Preston, “that you 
had to leave Aldwich.” 

“But I had to. You see I had to?” Marion 
questioned, eagerly. 

“ I see how you look at it,” he replied. “And, of 
course, for my own sake, I am glad. You see I am 
making a long stay here. But I think you may be 
wrong.” 

He smiled at Marion’s negative headshake as he 
said good-bye; receiving, in the manner he had 
known he should receive, the anticipated clasp of 
her hand. 


ii 

Marion went slowly upstairs with her mind full 
of the questions raised by John Preston’s last 
sentences and his rather sad and disillusioned smile. 
It is true she hugged also her vision of him, rejoicing 
in the advent of someone who cared for her enough 
to wish to understand her; who saw her as an 


TO PENSIVE EVE 


93 


individual, and not as an adjunct to Lottie; some- 
one, also, whom she could respect and understand. 
But in the main she was concerned with his last 
sentences. Had she acted wisely in answering 
Lottie’s call and coming to Margaret’s Mead? 

She did not know. She knew that* she had 
imagined her duty clear — her duty to her sick sister 
and small nephew and niece. But was it true that 
sacrifice is nearly always made in vain? Had she 
really added anything essential to Lottie’s happi- 
ness or to the well-being of Bobbie and Clare? 
On the other hand, had she made a real sacrifice? 
Or had she first and always pleased herself? 

In asking the question she had no mind to lose 
herself in vain conjectures as to the mainspring of 
all action. It might or might not be true that 
morals are based solely on selfishness and that her 
action in coming to Lottie, even at personal dis- 
advantage, might be for no better reason than that 
personal disadvantage gave her less pain than the 
thought of Lottie’s disappointment. She knew all 
this was arguable, and dismissed it. What she 
questioned was whether Lottie’s wish or her own 
inclination had weighed the more with her. Had it 
been the lure of duty? Or was it rather the lure of 
memory? The lure of a gabled house back- 
grounded in trees; of a smiling garden, of a place 
peopled with memories, eloquent with sounds and 
fragrances of a vividly remembered past? Or was 
it that she was after all stunned with the jar and 
conflict of commerce; unnerved by a heroic attempt 
to master it on too many sides at once? Had John 


94 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


Preston’s stimulus overstepped the mark of her 
young ambition? 

“I think I was rather tired,” thought Marion. 
“At any rate, I know I was glad to come.” 

hi 

Lottie’s eyes sought hers languidly when she 
entered the bedroom and, as soon as Kate had dis- 
appeared, she asked casually: 

“What is he like, Marion?” 

“ Like? ” repeated Marion. She crossed the room 
and sat down by the bedside. “ I thought you were 
asleep.” 

“No. He must be almost middle aged, mustn’t 
he? I have a sort of idea he was grown up, when I 
was in my ’teens.” 

“Mr. Preston? He is thirty-eight,” replied 
Marion, concisely. “He came with a message of 
apology from Miss Frances, Lottie.” 

“To you?” asked Lottie, with a careful accent of 
mild interest. 

Marion replied, “No, to you, dear.” She had a 
sensation of sickening fear. Was there to be another 
outburst of senseless jealousy and temper, with its 
dread result? 

But Lottie’s feelings were not deeply concerned 
here. She merely said: 

“Oh, to me. I was too insignificant, I suppose, 
to be remembered for myself.” 

Marion answered, with the guile of a serpent: 

“You never gave them the opportunity of know- 
ing you; how you used to hate Greyladies!” 


TO PENSIVE EVE 


95 


“And should still,” replied Lottie, cheerfully. 
“I have no use for superior people. That’s why I 
married Will.” 

Marion asked, rather anxiously: 

“Do you feel well enough to talk?” 

“I shall be really ill if I don’t. Oh, I’ll be ever 
so careful. I suppose, Mary, a man like this Mr. 
John would just suit you; someone who’d talk 
miles over one’s head all the time and have to be 
worshipped at a respectful distance.” 

Marion answered, sedately. “You have for- 
gotten he’s married.” 

“Married?” echoed Lottie, disgustedly. “Oh, 
of course. I was imagining him a widower. He’s 
the one with the wife who drinks. What is she 
like, Marion? Have you seen her?” 

To amuse Lottie, Marion went fully into the 
story, feeding her with details that may not be 
set down here. She paused now and again, hoping 
for respite, but always Lottie met the pause with a 
lazy, contented: “Go on.” 

“He should get a separation,” she said at last. 
“I would not live with such a beast.” 

“Oh,” said Marion, rather wearily, “they have 
not lived together for a long time — years, I think.” 

“And separations are ridiculous, too,” continued 
Lottie. “The only sensible thing is divorce.” 

“I don’t see that,” Marion answered her. 

Lottie stared at her. Then she smiled — the 
rather mocking smile she often had for Marion. 

“Don’t you?” she said. “I suppose you think 
divorce immoral. It doesn’t occur to you that it’s 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


96 

immoral to chain two people together who have 
ceased to part a shred of affection between 
them.” 

“ I wouldn’t chain them together,” said Marion. 
“I believe in separation.” 

“I don’t,” said Lottie. “It’s negative. Life is 
positive and the things that make for life. Not to 
be hurt — that’s your negative position. To love 
and enjoy — that’s mine, positive.” 

“I don’t agree,” said Marion. “But then, 
though I believe in divorce, I don’t believe in 
marriage after divorce.” 

Again Lottie stared at her. 

“What in the world do you think divorce is for?” 
she asked. 

“It’s an assertion of honour,” replied Marion, 
her head high. “ It’s — why, Lottie, no good man or 
woman could contemplate marrying again while 
the one they had married before was still alive. 
Imagine being married to a man and seeing him 
meet the man who had been your husband first!” 

“Well,” said Lottie. “It would be — possibly — 
uncomfortable.” 

“Uncomfortable?” echoed Marion. “People 
with memories ! It’s unthinkable ! ’ ’ 

Lottie watched her ironically. “And you sup- 
pose,” she said, the faintest inflection of pity in her 
voice, “that a man — your good man — would look 
at things in that light?” 

“I do,” said Marion. She spoke as though faith 
made facts. 

“Mary, my dear,” said Lottie, her voice tranquil 


TO PENSIVE EVE 


97 


but exhausted, “I dare not laugh, though I want 
to. Instead, I’ve got to speak or I shall burst. 
You’re a fool.” 


IV 

As daylight faded the fact of illness and catas- 
trophe reasserted itself at Margaret’s Mead. Will 
came in from the fields early and betook himself 
upstairs to his wife, first exasperating Marion by 
stripping off his coat in the kitchen to wash noisily 
at the sink. She guessed that he did so to avoid 
making a clatter in his room next to Lottie’s, who 
might be sleeping. But she wondered angrily why 
he could not use the bathroom; why he did not 
make a habit — as Walter did — of an evening bath 
after his day’s work about the farm. 

Then she helped Phyllis get the children quietly 
to bed, a matter calling for diplomacy. For Lottie 
seemed alarmingly exhausted, complaining of the 
heat even as the day waned into an evening singu- 
larly pure, sweet, and cool. Perhaps it was the 
unusual freshness that kept the children joyous and 
buoyant, so that Marion’s nerves were frayed more 
in the endeavour to still their laughter than if the 
need had been to soothe fretful tears. 

But at last the babies slept. The sounds out of 
doors altered in quality and kind — so numerous, 
yet so distinct from the busy sounds of day — and 
the shadows in the low oak room deepened. The 
fragrance of field and garden stole gently into the 
house through the widely open windows — the house 
so designedly quiet and still! Everything within it 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


98 

seemed to remind its inmates of how different all 
would have been had the mistress not been ill. 

In such things lies the pain of illness for those who 
look on. The new, strange, heavy aspect taken 
by commonplace things; an aching desolateness, 
born of comparison. Marion found her hurt 
deepened, rather than healed, by the logical re- 
flection that for this, indeed, she had come to 
Margaret’s Mead; that but for the expectation of it 
she would not have been there. 

Even the garden soon became too pensively sweet 
for walking in alone, and Marion’s thoughts turned 
instinctively to the bright-lit dining room, where 
Walter wrestled with his accounts. She believed 
him to be a bungler and felt sure that she could 
help him. Lottie, in one of her match-making 
moments, had suggested as much. Marion had 
disdained to offer aid then, but in her restless de- 
pression she craved some such occupation now. 

In the silent house the idea soon became an 
obsession: To be busy in some mind-absorbing 
way with facts concerned with life, and so cheat the 
creeping thoughts of death that sought to wind 
themselves about her. How dead she felt already! 
How dim and far away seemed the morning’s 
encounter with Walter, Lottie’s ill-starred vehe- 
mence, the dinner hour, compound of anger and 
pleasure, the resurrection — now seeming so remote 
as to be dreamlike — of her Southbay life and its 
intimacy with Mr. John. 

Fear of her mood and the hour drove her. She 
crossed the hall and opened the dining-room door. 


TO PENSIVE EVE 


99 

The table was bespread with account books but 
Walter was seated at his bureau. She said to him: 

“I am rather miserable. Can you give me some- 
thing to do?” 


v 

When at her words he turned toward her, her 
heart sank. What had possessed her that she should 
intrude upon this man? Walter had evidently not 
been working. As he turned his face to her it was 
all marked with bars and dents of white where he 
had held it sunk between his strong, lean fingers. 
But besides these marks, so soon effaced, there 
were strange workings and convulsions of feature, 
wild gleams in his red and angry glance, so fiercely 
resentful of intrusion. Marion knew him to be a 
bigoted and fanatical abstainer or she would have 
thought he had been drinking. 

Oddly enough, this was not all from which she 
shrank back with distaste. Though she fancied 
his shaken soul naked before her she must pause 
over such unworthy details as his tasteless clothes, 
his meanness of stature, his ugly hands — all appear- 
ing suddenly exaggerated into something positively 
and actively obnoxious. While, as if to affront her, 
the physical attributes and sex of the man seemed 
to shout at her in the still and silent room. She 
thought, with amazement, that she must have be- 
gun to get used to him until she again saw Mr. 
John! 

He asked, briefly: “Did you want me?” 

She perceived he had not heard what she said 


IOO 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


and sought desperately in her mind for something 
that would take her, at once and unanswered, out 
of the room. But nothing presented itself, and she 
repeated her former sentence, tonelessly, feeling her 
mind quite blank. 

He heard her apparently unsurprised, and Marion 
saw, with a sort of unwilling fascination, his features 
settle into their usual aggressive and dogged lines, 
as a wrestling tree falls into stillness when the wind 
drops. Agitation passed him by. He answered 
in the most casual, emotionless voice: 

“There’s a lot of work wants doing in the wages’ 
book.” 

With the words he got up and crossed to the table 
and, with a sigh of relief, Marion went there, too. 
He opened a book and drew his finger down the 
columns. He remarked : 

“You see it wants extending and totalling.” 

Marion found herself looking at a neatly kept and 
business-like account. After a moment’s scrutiny 
she put out a hand to turn back a leaf, saying: 

“Nothing has been brought forward.” 

Walter said “No,” but kept his hand so awk- 
wardly in its place that Marion’s must touch it. 
Instinctively she sped a quick glance to his face, 
ripe for resentment. She met a look steadfast and 
impassive as that of a sphinx. Yet the momentary 
contact had sent her blood rushing back upon her. 
Her brain clamoured, resentfully: 

“He will work close beside you, and you will not 
lose consciousness of his presence for one moment 
of the time.” 


TO PENSIVE EVE ioi 

Walter sank into the chair next to hers. He 
said: 

“ Would you mind calling over these entries?” 
He pointed out which. “ My disbursement book is 
not folioed. That’s why I left them. What is 
yours? Thanks.” 

She began calling over. 

VI 

Asa matter of fact, Marion’s entrance had seemed 
the most apt and pertinent conclusion to Walter 
Napier’s long reverie. Sitting there in angry, grief- 
stricken solitude, he had been reading, page by 
page, the history of his ill-starred passion for 
Lottie. He saw her in the long bygone years, a 
wild, laughing, mocking slip of a girl, at once romp 
and prude, escaping from the quietude of life at 
Margaret’s Mead, glad to encounter him and his 
brother, to tease and flout them with mingled 
challenges and compliments and gibes. 

Lottie had brought with her a subtle something — 
a difference of speech and accent, a graceful erect- 
ness of carriage, a careless confidence in dress — that 
had marked her out for the young, ambitious man 
from the girls he had so far met. And then she 
came from Margaret’s Mead where, as he well 
knew, a more dignified and ordered life was led 
than any he had known: whose inmates passed him 
by with the affable but careless nod of undoubting 
and undoubted superiority. 

Lottie condescended to them, and in his pride he 
alternately welcomed and rebuffed her; welcoming 


102 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


what she was, and rebuffing her for the things and 
people who claimed her. Lottie, in the delicate 
grace of her slim girlhood, with her laughing gray- 
green eyes, her sharp tongue, her mischief, her wit 
and raillery! Ah, he had loved her then! Loved 
her the more for the quick, daring kisses she had 
received so coolly. 

Lottie at her wildest had been always cool, ready 
to dance out of his life as gaily as she had danced 
into it. Too lazy, in the quick thereafter, to answer 
his letters; too lazy even to let him know of her 
change of address. And so the years slipped by 
and the choice that kept him at home and led Will 
to wander gave her at last to the weaker brother. 

He recalled how Will had written home: 

I am bringing my girl home, mother. Tell Walter 
it’s Lottie Harland; he’ll remember her; we used to have 
larks together years ago when she stayed at Margaret’s 
Mead. 

“My girl!” Walter Napier had scorned the 
expression, scorned the letter and the writer. 
Will’s writing was bad, his spelling not even 
phonetic, but resembling no known usage. All of 
which had not altered the fact that he had secured 
Lottie. A different Lottie, the older Walter opined, 
from the Lottie of Margaret’s Mead. 

But she had proved no different, and Walter had 
kissed her again, and again she had taken his kisses 
coolly. She had taken his kisses coolly, though 
they were different kisses, and she was engaged to 


TO PENSIVE EVE 


103 


his brother! Yet curiously, oddly, Walter had 
known that she remained true to Will; believed, 
none the less fiercely resenting it, that Will knew of 
and laughed at his kisses, in fond and conscious 
pride of possession. And knew and believed these 
things in spite of believing, also, that he, Walter, 
more truly possessed her. 

And it was true. Lottie knew she loved Walter 
as she did not love Will, but she was afraid of her 
loving. It was too much, too exciting, too stimu- 
lating, too encroaching! She declined on her mild 
affection for Will as on a haven of rest and security. 
Passion for Walter was too wild a sea for her to em- 
bark upon. 

So, reasonably and calculatingly, she remained 
true to her plighted troth: believing, indeed, that 
she did rightly. She had given her word, and she 
loved Will, quietly but steadfastly. He de- 
manded nothing of her that she could not give. 
But Walter’s more restless brain and over-masterful 
passion — that would want living up to, she fore- 
saw. Lottie was carelessly and gaily casual. She 
felt herself not strong enough for the heroic role. 
Besides, if she married Will she would keep both 
brothers. Walter would never forget her and 
always respect her — she could see to that. Whereas 
if she took Walter, Will, after a long spell of sullen 
jealousy and rage, would eventually forget her: 
conceivably marry. So she kept them both. 

All this Walter knew and recalled. He recalled 
the occasions when he had kissed her, the once only 
that she had kissed him. He recalled all that she 


104 


MARGARET'S MEAD 


had meant to him — how, in spite of his clear- 
sightedness in regard to her, she had remained for 
him above all women desirable and dear. 

Above all women desirable and dear! And yet, 
if all love holds its alloy of hate, how near to hatred 
unalloyed was Walter’s starved, unquiet passion? 
Only, so far, he had yet to meet the woman whose 
image would obliterate hers. Would Marion’s? 
Could Marion’s? 

For at last he was losing her — utterly, irretriev- 
ably; as he never yet had lost her. She, moreover, 
gaily and cheerfully offering something in her stead, 
while she gave her last kisses to his brother. 

He paused in his reverie and, silently and de- 
liberately, holding his breath, let his picture of 
Lottie be replaced by Marion. Something of 
Lottie the new fair face held; something of her 
mockery, a faint reflex of her spirit, and all and 
more of the subtle superiority that had first — in far 
back days of early youth — attracted and fired him. 

He held his breath. In a grim spasm of revolt 
and energy he muttered: “I’ll take Marion!” 

And so, pertinently, Marion entered the room. 

vn 

He faced her, resentful of intrusion, yet none the 
less his latest thought held him strongly enough to 
make him school both features and voice to a 
semblance of calm. Moreover, Marion’s face again 
arrested him with its likeness to Lottie’s. She 
was worn out by the rapid passage of events and 
sensation, and the careworn hollowness of cheek and 


TO PENSIVE EVE 


105 

eye accentuated the family likeness invariably 
existing between sisters. The hand she had laid 
upon the open account book might have been 
Lottie’s before Lottie became ill. Deliberately 
Napier sought contact with it; deliberately sensed 
the girl’s thrill and resentment and grimly exulted 
in the impassivity which masked his own. 

Now he sat near her; so close that leaning back 
slightly in his chair as she leant forward he could 
watch with stolen sidelong glances the pulses in her 
throat and the stir of her blouse under her breath- 
ing; even catch, by slight manoeuvring, the faintest 
suggestion of curve toward her bosom’s rounded 
perfection. He was sensualist enough to do that; 
man enough to despise himself for the meanness of 
his spying. 

When, at last, after an hour’s quiet work, Marion 
leant back from her task with a sigh and the soft 
blouse fell into its wonted place, giving only the 
sharply defined and modest V of the open neck to 
view, Napier closed his lips on a sharp sigh. His 
senses were awake and his pulses throbbing. As 
a fact, he was drunk with the pain of the fear of 
Lottie’s loss. 

He said to Marion, curtly: “You like book- 
keeping. What do you think of my system?” 

“I don’t think I’ve grasped it as a system,” 
Marion replied, truthfully. Her eye wandered over 
the books strewed about the table. “Farm ac- 
counts are a new proposition to me. You will have 
to give me the headings for me to know.” 

Walter reached for and opened one book after 


io6 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


another, briefly naming the accounts they repre- 
sented. For a few minutes Marion was held inter- 
ested and surprised. Why had she imagined that 
so acute a brain as Walter’s would bungle his 
accounts? And he was a neat penman. She re- 
vised her view of him. 

“ What is the untidy looking book? ” she asked, at 
last, having found nothing in Walter’s to condemn. 

He reached for and gave it to her without a word. 
Opening it she flushed as she recognized Will’s 
hopeless writing and more hopeless figures. Then 
she saw everywhere Walter’s neat corrections and 
emendations. After an awkward pause she re- 
marked, with an attempt at casualness: 

“This is just a day-book dealing only with 
cattle.” 

“Will is a cattle dealer,” returned Walter. “I 
thought you knew that. He believes in simplicity. 
You’ll find his payments and receipts all in the 
one column. Then he dissects it into monthly 
totals at the end of the book.” 

As Marion turned to the last few untidy pages he 
pushed back his chair. “Now you know all about 
us,” he said, with a grim smile. “That’s Will’s 
bit on his own, over and above his work for me. He 
is a judge of cattle. So he makes, roughly, one way 
and another, about four hundred a year.” 

Marion thought of her own twenty-four, plus her 
keep. She wondered, simultaneously, why he told 
her this. 

Walter, standing behind her, kept his eyes on the 
bright tendrils of hair that caressed the white neck. 


TO PENSIVE EVE 


107 

He put his two hands on her chair back and sud- 
denly Marion heard his quick and heavy breathing. 

She moved to stand up, but before she could do 
so Walter spoke again, in a new voice, arrestingly: 

“I make about twice that amount — that is, on 
the farm. So you know all about me.” He paused 
and in a much lower tone added: “Will you marry 
me?” 


VIII 

In her amazement Marion pushed the books 
violently from her and stood up, turning to Walter 
as though he had offered her insult. But, for a 
moment, she said nothing. For one reason, the 
sight of his face drove all words from her mouth. 

He said to her again, drawing back a pace, but 
with his intent and heated eyes on hers: 

“Will you?” 

Marion hurried herself and answered, stammer- 
ing: 

“No, no, of course not.” 

“Why ‘of course not’?” demanded Napier. 
“You’re not thinking of that nonsense about my 
wishing to make Lottie jealous? You were wrong 
about that. As a matter of fact, I could not have 
hoped to do it. For Lottie wants you to marry 
me.” 

Even in her excitement the words had power 
to turn Marion’s thoughts to Lottie — Lottie, the 
quite unscrupulous schemer. She said, involun- 
tarily: 

“Has she told you so?” 


108 MARGARET’S MEAD 

“Both before you came and since,” Walter 
answered, his eyes steady upon her. “She wants 
that as much as she ever wanted anything. You 
know that, don’t you?” 

He did not wait for her answer but, watching 
her acutely, went on: 

“Lottie sometimes fancies she may not live long. 
In any event, she wants your future secured, and 
she wants you here. But if she dies she fancies 
that with you secured to the kiddies as a mother, 
there’d be a sporting chance that Will wouldn’t 
marry again.” 

Marion’s lips curled. She murmured, scorn- 
fully: “Then she doesn’t know her husband.” On 
top of that she flushed to find herself talking aloud 
and, recalling something, told him as she had done 
once before: 

“You don’t know Lottie.” 

“Oh,” said Walter, “I’m just repeating what she 
tells me. Judge for yourself.” 

And, glancing quickly up at him, Marion saw 
her sister saying just that, laughing as she drove 
the dagger into his heart. Again she felt a swift 
compunction for Walter. But he asked her 
again: 

“Wifl you?” 

So utterly had she lost herself in thoughts of 
Lottie that she repeated blankly: 

“Will I what?” 

“Wifl you marry me?” said Walter again, as 
baldly. But this time he lost hold of himself a 
Httle, and seized her hands. 


TO PENSIVE EVE 


109 


“I told you no,” said Marion, a little resentfully. 
There had been such an absence of sentiment in the 
way he made his request that she could but answer 
it so. She added, challengingly: 

“For one reason, you don’t want me to.” 

Instantly she was overwhelmed by the hideous- 
ness of her mistake. Napier’s hands, holding hers, 
first leaped and then tightened convulsively. His 
features worked, his unwavering glance burned. 

“I do,” he said, hoarsely, “I do.” 

For more than a moment Marion felt stunned, 
then hot, then sorry. And as he looked at her, 
Walter Napier recognized at last that his judgment 
had been at fault. His estimate of women was, 
inevitably, the measure of his experience. And 
such a woman as Marion had not hitherto passed 
his way. In a few moments he had ceased to hold 
her hands; his wolfish gaze dropped from her. He 
turned aside. 

“God knows you are right,” he said, strangely. 

There was a brief, still silence while that in 
Marion’s glance which was compunction and pain 
and pity deepened. Out of the stress of the mo- 
ment her eyes filled. For her at that moment 
Walter was not one man, but many. All men, all 
women, with their warring inclinations, their 
thwarted desires, their blind and lonely seeking 
after many and various gods — happiness, and 
appetite, and light. 

But she knew it was no moment for pity or 
tarrying. She walked away to the door. With it 
open in her hand she paused to say, steadily: 


no 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“ Good-night, Walter.” 

He had begun to put the ledgers in the safe. But 
he paused, and with his back toward her, standing 
suddenly very still, he answered: 

“ Good-night.” 


i 


Aldwich 


I 

“And so the town supplies the motif for your 
life,” said Miss Frances, smiling but serious. 
“Margaret’s Mead is just an interlude?” 

Marion looked up in quick surprise. “I don’t 
think I have said so, have I?” she said, with the 
most transparent candour. 

Miss Frances’s dark eyes smiled more. “Surely 
not, in so many words,” she answered. “ Only that 
is what John has been giving me to see. You have 
an enthusiasm for business — you will do yourself 
justice in the town and be rather wasted here.” 
She turned to her nephew lying at ease in a canvas 
chair. “I’m not misquoting you, am I, John?” 

“I don’t think you’re quoting at all,” he an- 
swered, amused. “You know,” he went on to 
Marion, “Aunt Frances has fashioned her own 
little niche for you to fill, and I rather fancy it is 
quite near Greyladies. So any influence I may 
have tried to exercise is not approved.” 

“I should be very glad to have you settled at 
Margaret’s Mead,” said Miss Frances, simply. 
“But that, my dear, is an old woman’s selfishness. 
For you do love business, do you not?” 

Marion sent a quiet glance to the house of Grey- 


iii 


112 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


ladies and down the smiling lawns sloping to the 
river. Tea had been laid on a table under the sweep- 
ing cedar and a neat maid was now flitting between 
it and the house clearing away the things. Between 
the garden and the river path ran a low stone wall, 
broken by a centre flight of steps against which a 
boat was moored, and overgrown by a riot of briar 
roses. A sun dial marked the centre of the lawn; 
a gravel path ran round it. The garden, like the 
house, boasted no wealth of colour, but was fringed 
with graceful trees and low flowering shrubs — * 
its charm faintly austere, to match the gray house 
with its sunken porch and delicate stone tracery 
and the cream and yellow roses clambering on its 
walls. She answered Miss Frances: 

“Not in comparison with how I love this.” 

Her glance sufficiently emphasized “this” and 
Miss Frances sent a half-questioning, half-trium- 
phant glance to Mr. John. He looked contentedly 
imperturbable, but his quiet glance reminded Miss 
Frances of something. She said: 

“John would like to hear, and so should I, 
something about Aldwich if it won’t be boring 
you.” 

“Aldwich?” repeated Marion, and smiled — a 
curious, reflective smile. Then she leant forward 
in her low chair, clasping her hands about her knee, 
with a sudden hint of eagerness in look and attitude. 
“Aldwich,” she repeated again. “Nothing could 
be more opposite to ... to this . . . 

than my experiences there.” 

John Preston looked interested. His glance, also, 


ALDWICH 


113 

took quick, comprehensive survey of house and 
garden. With quickened senses he was conscious 
of light and shadow, pure straying air, the murmur 
of the river, the rustle of leaves and song of birds; 
the sweet odours from the fragrant borders of the 
kitchen garden beyond the screen of trees. In that 
moment he seemed to see also the clear greens and 
browns of the river bottom, the limpid water, the 
far-stretching countryside; and he saw them as a 
background to his aunt’s slight and dainty dignity 
and Marion’s fresh, sweetly tinted youth. His 
gaze rested last and long on the girl in her simple 
frock of blue as she leant forward, suddenly eager, 
animated, keen to relate. 

“We will take ‘all this’ for granted,” he said, in 
the half-teasing, half-indulgent tone he had always 
had for Marion. “But I really should like to hear 
about Aldwich.” 

“I hope,” said Marion, “if it is now incorporated 
in the South Coast A.B.C., you have known how 
to reform it. The staff, to start with.” 

“The men?” asked Miss Frances. 

“Oh, no,” said Marion. “I was not thinking of 
the bakehouse. I was concerned with indoors. 
There was the manageress. She was engaged to a 
deep-sea diver.” 

Her audience looked slightly bewildered, as 
perhaps Marion whimsically intended. She ex- 
plained. 

“He earned rather a lot of money, and in the 
ordinary course of things he sent the bulk of it to his 
fiancee to bank for him. At such times Miss Dee 


1 1 4 MARGARET’S MEAD 

was quite a good chief to work under — at others, 
not.” 

“Why not?” asked John Preston, briefly. 

“Oh, they were rather elemental,” said Marion, 
casually, “the Aldwich set. If the money didn’t 
come, Miss Dee knew the diver was drinking, which 
upset her. So she used to sit on the stairs and weep 
and refuse to eat and take stimulants instead. That 
made it necessary for the one servant to spend most 
of her time looking after her.” 

Miss Frances looked horrified, but Marion went 
on: 

“So on those days even the shop was not always 
swept. And the bakehouse made out its own order 
list — generally of things we didn’t want. Most of 
the house never was swept, ordinarily .... 
there was a good deal of washing up.” 

John Preston asked: “What about the district 
secretary?” 

“ Oh, he came twice a week. There was always a 
surface tidying up before he came. And he never 
criticised Miss Dee much. The Aldwich branch 
paid.” 

“Then the manageress was really a capable 
woman,” hazarded Miss Frances. 

Marion said briefly: “Aldwich has a large floating 
population and the A.B.C. happens to be the 
confectioners nearest the sea. There’s no serious 
competition. Run on Southbay lines, the turnover 
could be multiplied by twelve.” 

Mr. John objected: “Southbay ran no tea rooms, 
no restaurant.” 


ALDWICH 


ii5 

Marion answered quickly: “I used the wrong 
word. I meant Southbay principles. At Aldwich 
we had comparatively no regular customers. 
People came once. When I left they were still 
serving from chequer cake that was in cut when I 
went there.” 

Miss Frances interposed, astonished: “How 
long?” 

Marion replied, “Seven weeks,” and added: 
“Their cakes never got stale.” 

“Too sweeping,” commented Mr. John, laughing 
gently. He stared, arrested, when Marion answered, 
primly: 

“Literally true.” She added, after a pause, 
“Aldwich did not suit me. I have not even the 
makings of a really good liar.” 

Mr. John threw his cigarette away. He said, 
rising: 

“You know, of course, that we have acquired that 
business?” 

“Yes, I know,” said Marion. “Has Mrs. 
George been down there?” 

“I don’t think so.” 

“It would be a good plan,” Marion suggested, 
“if she went to Aldwich — not for a day — but say 
for a week, and dropped in to the A.B.C. once or 
twice a day.” 

“Isn’t that rather like spying?” suggested Miss 
Frances. She felt vaguely disquieted, degraded 
even, by the sordidness of the tale elicited. Both 
she and her nephew were astounded, none the less, 
when Marion’s face suddenly flamed. 


n6 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“It is not spying, dear Miss Frances,” she said, 
with a sudden white heat of emphasis, “to expose 
crime. The Aldwich A.B.C. is a crime — a sordid, 
dishonest, uncleanly, health-corrupting crime. A 
business conducted without a single endeavour to 
give honest value for money received; without 
a single thought for the health and welfare of its 
staff. Our hours of work were from eight to eight, 
and if we wanted clean bedrooms we must clean 
them before or after those hours — I finished mine 
once a week somewhere about midnight. Unfor- 
tunately I couldn’t wash bed-linen in that time! 
I worked by artificial light all day in a room where 
daylight never penetrated!” 

Mr. John remarked, experimentally: “You were 
not obliged to stay there.” 

Marion smiled. “But I can imagine circum- 
stances when I should have been. Supposing I had 
similar luck once or twice . . . you must stay 

somewhere, for the sake of a reference.” 

“When you said just now,” he criticised again, 
“that the turnover could be multiplied by twelve, 
I assume you were not confusing turnover with 
profit?” 

“Hardly,” said Marion. Her lips took a slightly 
ironical curve. “We may assume I recognize the 
distinction. But hazarding a guess I should say it 
would be fair to suppose that the multiplication of 
turnover by twelve would multiply profits by six — 
even on an honest administration.” 

“It is at any rate arguable,” said Mr. John, 
quietly. His eyes travelled observantly to his 


ALDWICH 


117 

aunt’s face — to the delicate flush on her clear cheek 
and the look of trouble in her dark eyes. He re- 
marked to the look: 

“This is an age when girls have to work for their 
living.” 

Marion caught him up quickly. 

“There has never been an age when the majority 
of women hadn’t. Only it used to be done in their 
own homes. My grandmother baked and brewed, 
wove her own cloth and made her own soap and 
starch and candles, besides mere butter and jams 
and cheese. Needless to say she needed hired help 
or the help of all her daughters. Modern industry 
has changed all that. Women must follow their 
work whither it goeth.” 

She ended on a smile, but it left her eyes quickly. 
She turned to Miss Frances to say: 

“Are you thinking that no one can get servants? ” 

Even Miss F ranees looked confused . She winced 
as she said, sadly: “My dear, I am very ignorant 
and very old-fashioned.” 

Impossible for Marion not to feel rebuked, for all 
her high purpose and singleness of aim, as youth 
often is rebuked by the very defencelessness of 
age. She took in hers one of the thin, frail hands 
that lay passive but nervous in Miss Frances’s lap 
and said, humbly: 

“I did not say that quite as I meant it. 
Only . . . only don’t you agree that it is just 

the most stinging indictment of service that girls 
will prefer to it even the conditions I have de- 
scribed?” 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


118 

Miss Frances answered, gently: “ Partly. But 
also, my dear, I shall wait to see all men willing to 
be hewers of wood before I expect all women to 
desire to be drawers of water.” 

The low white gate swung open, and Dorothea 
came up the path. 


II 

The entrance of Dorothea, clad in white and 
swinging a tennis racket, created a diversion. 
First Marion had to be greeted on this her first 
call at Greyladies, and Dorothea did so prettily, 
as she did most things, kissing Marion affection- 
ately and pausing by her chair with a guileless flow 
of chatter. She was an arrestingly pretty child, 
tall and big for her age, with a mass of dark curly 
hair, a pretty smooth curve of cheek, and charming 
liquid gray eyes. Those eyes seemed all wistful 
innocence and appeal; astonishing then, that they 
should be allied to a sensual curve of lip and wide, 
flat nostril. Marion always had a difficulty in 
reconciling Dorothea’s eyes and nose; a difficulty 
Dorothea’s father did not share. There had been 
burnt into him by harsh experience the whole 
meaning of those melting, appealing eyes that most 
people apprized so differently. 

Marion could not understand Mr. Preston’s 
attitude to his daughter. He was fond of her, and 
proud in a sense of her beauty. But he seemed 
for ever putting a curb or restraint on his fondness, 
turning from it with austerity and impatience. 
Yet it was obvious that Dorothea was well enough 


ALDWICH 


119 

pleased with what caresses she got from her father, 
never doubting her power to please and charm him 
and taking his fondness for granted. This trait he 
seemed to detest in her as a sort of unwarranted 
vanity, and then, remembering his fatherhood, 
chid himself for his folly. Dorothea bore no 
faintest resemblance to him, but was wholly and 
solely her mother’s. 

She chattered to them now of tennis, and of who 
played, and of what she had eaten for tea — a 
prettily confessed gourmande. She asked nicely 
after Marion’s sister and whether she might come 
to see her or could take out Bobbie and Clare. All 
refreshingly simple and sweet-natured. Then she 
went off and forgot all about them, except to won- 
der with quite intent interest whether Marion 
would marry that brusque, red-faced Mr. Napier. 

For Marion she made the most appealing picture 
of unaffected girlish innocence and beauty. She 
envied her as she lingered, with happy, confident 
familiarity, at her father’s side — so daintily attired, 
so healthy, fortunate, and care-free. After all, 
what had women like Miss Frances and the Doro- 
thea of a near future to do with the problems that 
seemed so pressingly and peculiarly her own? And 
how mean and ugly those problems seemed against 
this gracious, easy, confident freedom of the happy 
well-to-do. How much harder it seemed to say at 
Greyladies what Marion was wont to say to herself 
passionately, often, that people who added nothing 
to the sum of the world’s wealth had no right to a 
share in it. But did Miss Frances add nothing? 


120 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


Marion knew that she did. Would Dorothea add 
nothing? The chances were that she would richly 
do her part as wife and mother. Then where must 
she look for idle, fruitless, useless lives? Marion 
believed whole-heartedly that such lives there were, 
nor was she wrong. But already, side by side with 
her insistent demand that in a world where man 
lives by the sweat of his brv w every soul should do 
its share of earning, there was growing in her mind a 
perception of the ever-widening and diverse ways in 
which the earning could be done. 

Miss Frances was the first to hark back to the 
point at which Dorothea had interrupted them. 
She asked, with a rather pathetic, hopeful eager- 
ness: 

“ There were compensating factors, I suppose, 
even at Aldwich?” 

Marion would have loved to be able to set her 
mind at rest. But she could not. She said, 
smiling: 

“I don’t think of any. You mustn’t think me 
guilty of coming to a sweeping conclusion on the 
few points I named. They were only thrown 
out as suggesting the general trend of things. 
It would be rather a pity to do more.” 

Because Miss Frances looked perplexed she sup- 
plied the reason. 

“It would be a rather dreary catalogue of sordid 
details of bad management. And it would put out 
the sunlight for you and Mr. Preston.” She 
looked up at the latter to say, further: “For I’m 
assuming Aldwich will be looked into.” 


ALDWICH 


12 I 


“You mean that you think you’ve said enough 
to secure that,” Mr. Preston replied to the look. 
“And if you haven’t?” 

“Would you like me to say more? ” asked Marion. 

He looked at her intently, half annoyed and half 
amused. The fact was that he had felt rather 
satisfied with Aldwich. But as she met the look 
Marion’s became relieved under it. She said to 
Miss Frances: 

“You know the Prestons have a tender business 
conscience!” 


hi 

After Marion had gone home Miss Frances tried 
to sort out her rather tangled impressions of her 
favourite. First she looked with wistful per- 
plexity for the “little Mary” of her dreams; the 
quaintly voluble, lovable child who had mingled 
her vivacious moods with long spells of silent and 
serious dreaming, and at her most joyous was never 
noisy or boisterous — her intense vitality of the 
spirit, a brightly glancing flame. 

Miss Frances, a dreamer herself, had destined her 
Mary for poet or artist — was not her father such? 
Would not she follow in his steps, with a firmer and 
more consistent tread, less of caprice and more of 
purpose? But this girl! Immersed in all the 
petty commercial life of her day! Where was the 
Mary of her dreams? 

Gradually, as Miss Frances sat in the twilight — a 
frail and slight but none-the-less dignified figure 
with dark eyes darker for the delicacy of her skin 


122 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


and the whiteness of her hair — the little Mary of her 
cherished memories was re-born to her. Nothing 
had Marion lacked of Miss Frances’s desire in 
grace of form and fairness of face, and gradually 
that sweet outer husk of her became informed with 
the very spirit and fervour for which she had seemed 
to look in vain. Miss Frances stirred restlessly 
in her chair as though with pleased excitement, 
her thin hands folding and unfolding nervously in 
her lap. When her nephew came in from the 
garden to find her sitting in the gathering dark he 
was startled by the ringing pleasure of the voice 
in which she said to him: 

“John, you are quite wrong. She is still exactly 
my little Mary.” 

It was too dark for her short-sighted eyes to see 
how suddenly and arrestedly still the man became. 
She knew he paused for a natural breathing-space 
before he said, evenly: 

“Am I so wrong? I always assured you she was 
that very same child.” 

“In a way that made me doubt it,” cried his aunt, 
on a note of triumphant disdain. “She isn’t a 
scrap your shrewd business woman. She’s just a 
visionary — a dreamer, with perfectly unpractical 
and other-worldly ideas of what appertains to 
business. She’s only interested in details because 
through them she sees the whole.” 

“Go on,” said John. His voice sounded as 
though he might be tolerantly amused, or merely 
collecting material for debate. He hated twilight, 
but he did not ring for lights. 


ALDWICH 


123 


“If,” continued Miss Frances, with dainty 
derision, “you succeeded in your pet scheme of 
weighting her with the responsibilities of a business 
— especially a limited company concern, as she 
describes it — she would break down under the 
stress of it. The drudgery would bore her and 
conflicting principles would impose an everlasting 
strain. Far better for her to be at Margaret’s 
Mead.” 

“While her sister lives,” said John Preston, on a 
curious note. “And afterward?” 

“Afterward?” echoed Miss Frances, rather 
blankly. “ Well, I imagine she will be needed more, 
afterward.” 

“I see,” said her nephew, “until she marries, 
or until the brother-in-law marries again. If the 
brother-in-law marries she’d have to resume busi- 
ness, I suppose, and resume it at a disadvantage. 
Or are we to take it for granted she will marry, to 
avert that disaster?” 

“How very far-sighted, John!” said Miss 
Frances, but in a rather troubled voice. “I must 
say one thing concerns me a great deal. I never 
could like those Napiers, and they have it in the 
kitchen ” 

Her voice trailed off. She rose from her chair. 

“My dear boy,” she said, “I forgot you hated 
the gloaming!” 

“Never mind,” answered her nephew, absently. 
“What were you saying was the talk in the kitchen?” 

“If I was saying anything,” said Miss Frances, 
“it was hopelessly indiscreet. However, you know 


124 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


what servants are! They have it that Mrs. Napier 
is bent on making a match for Marion with Walter.” 

“ Walter Napier!” said John Preston, with quite 
loud incredulity. “ That hog ! ’ ’ 

“No, dear,” said Miss Frances, with rather 
malicious serenity. “He’s a Socialist. So, I be- 
lieve, are you. And so, certainly, is Marion.” 

iv 

Lottie was awake, wide-eyed and greedy for news, 
when Marion reached home from Greyladies. She 
took up her supper — a tray dainty with spotless 
napery and silver — prepared to satisfy as well as she 
could the eager interest given such inadequate 
voice by Lottie’s low, tired tones. 

The day had been calm and fair and all the beauty 
of hill and meadow and copse, of wide expanse and 
murmuring stream was present to Marion as she 
moved about her sister’s room: a fair and airy 
prison, but still a prison, and appealing to Marion 
as such in a wave of compassion and pity as she 
came in from the sweet and gracious open air. 

“Tell me,” Lottie had uttered, briefly and simply, 
as Marion made the preparations necessary to 
spare her any, even the least, exertion. The em- 
broidered sleeves of her night dress slipped back 
from her painfully wasted arms; she lifted her 
fingers with a gesture and Marion recovered the 
wedding ring and keeper that slipped from them 
and rolled to the floor. 

“Don’t give them back to me,” Lottie said. 
“Put them away. They’re so heavy. I’m tired 


ALDWICH 


125 

of slipping them into place. There has been noth- 
ing else to do but just that since you’ve been 
away. Now tell me — anything that is not sickness 
or Margaret’s Mead.” 

It was fortunate that Marion was still under the 
stimulus of the desire to relate. She told Lottie, with 
contagious interest, all that she wanted to know. 

“One notices in detail now all the things that one 
missed as a child,” she said, “or, rather, took in as 
an inevitable whole. When we are little we seem 
to think things come about of their own accord — 
just happen to be. I know I never thought of 
comparing Greyladies with Margaret’s Mead.” 

“They’re not a bit alike,” said Lottie, restlessly. 
“You can’t compare them.” She added, jealously: 
“Which do you prefer, Marion?” 

“Margaret’s Mead,” said Marion, gladly because 
wholeheartedly. “At Greyladies I miss the warmth 
and glow of colour. I love our grass paths and 
herbaceous borders. But Greyladies has its own 
distinct charm . . . the inside matches the 

outside — square rooms, lofty and cool and plain. 
Do you remember how the big drawing room goes 
up through two stories? ” 

“I suppose it does,” said Lottie, reminiscently, 
“but I don’t remember it very clearly. I never 
went there much. Is it pretty?” 

“Very. Miss Frances has it done up in white and 
lilac and green. Panelled walls painted white, 
hung with water colours. The tall windows cur- 
tained in mauve silk and white muslin. The vases 
and even the fireplace tiles mauve and white, the 


126 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


furniture white and gold with chintz covers — 
lilac and green leaves on a white ground.” 

Lottie said, rather resentfully: “She can afford 
to squander money. Fancy being able to refurnish 
a room to match its decoration!” 

Marion opened her mouth to reply but closed it 
without speaking. It would not do to disagree 
with Lottie, even over a trifle. Instead she asked : 

“Has Miss Wilson plenty?” 

“Of money?” said Lottie. “She’s reputed to 
have. But she was the middle girl of seven and 
they all had to have marriage portions, so I don’t 
see that she could have much. Her father was never 
wealthy, I’m told, but an uncle left her some. But 
they’re ‘gentry’, you know, the Wilsons; round here 
people never let you forget that. So you’ll raise us 
tremendously, Marion, by visiting at Greyladies!” 

Marion laughed, she could not help it, at the sar- 
castic inflections of Lottie’s voice. 

“How funny!” she said. “And what a thorn in 
the flesh old Mr. Preston must have been, with his 
bakeries! He’s rather a delicious old man though, 
Lottie.” 

“Ah,” said Lottie. “What’s the girl like, 
Marion? Dorothea?” 

Marion told her, quite enthusiastically, unaware 
that Lottie scanned her face. She told her of 
Dorothea’s enquiries, and closed with: 

“When you’re better, Lottie, may I ask them 
here to tea?” 

“Miss Frances and Dorothea?” said Lottie, 
languidly. “I thought Miss Frances didn’t go out.” 


ALDWICH 


127 

“ Nor does she, ” said Marion. “ 1 meant Dorothea 
and her father.” 

“Ask them now,” said Lottie. “Then Will and 
Walter can have their tea upstairs with me. That's 
what you meant me to say, isn't it? ” 

Marion’s cheek flushed hotly and her hands 
shook, but she knew she must be impenetrable to 
Lottie's thrusts. After a minute or two she an- 
swered, quite evenly: 

“Mr. Preston is going to London for a day or 
two. I quite hope you will be downstairs by the 
time he comes back.” 

Lottie said nothing and Marion, a little heartsick, 
turned away. Why was Lottie's nature so per- 
versely, suspiciously jealous and cruel ? In the next 
moment she heard a stifled sob — there was Lottie, 
shaken by an instant paroxysm of penitence and 
remorse. 

Marion said, fondling and soothing her: “Don't; 
oh, don't! There’s no need. I know you through 
and through; just how much you mean.” 

It was true i,n the main, though superficially as 
generous as false. But she felt, hopelessly, how 
foredoomed to failure was any attempt to keep 
Lottie calm. And wondered again, passionately, 
how Lottie could so love and at the same time be- 
little her men. 

v 

Within five and twenty minutes Lottie had for- 
gotten her tears and Marion had led the talk, by 
way of Greyladies, away from controversial topics 


128 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


and was telling her of Aldwich. Aldwich was fresh 
in her mind to-day, not at all because of Miss 
Frances’s request, but because one incident, she 
scarcely knew how, persisted in linking itself to the 
episode with Walter of the night before. 

Marion puzzled over the reason, for she argued 
that the two were wide as the poles apart. Yet 
here they were, persistently linked together by 
memory as though they helped to make a whole. 
Lottie elicited the story with her casual, teasing: 

“And what about the men, Mary? Aren’t there 
ever any men? ” 

“There was a man at Aldwich,” said Marion, 
clasping her hands round her knee with a rather 
perverse look. “I didn’t like him, Lottie; and it 
isn’t a pretty story. But you can have it, if you 
like.” 

“Well, what about it?” said Lottie. Marion’s 
tone intrigued her. She told herself, however, that 
she knew Marion’s style of man and could make a 
good guess at the story. But for all that there was 
a hint of apprehension in her teasing smile. She 
hated the very thought of any unpleasant or evil 
thing touching Marion. This half-jealous ap- 
prehension made her say again, rather sharply: 
“What about it?” 

“You know Aldwich, don’t you,” said Marion, 
leisurely and conversationally; “the long parade 
where the sea breaks in flying scuds when the tide 
is in and which overlooks about a mile of sullen, 
rock-studded sands when it is out. We were walk- 
ing on the sands one Sunday afternoon ” 


ALDWICH 


129 


“Who’s ‘we’ ?” Lottie stopped her to ask. 

“I and the servant. You see, common as she 
certainly was, she was less so than the other 
assistant and the waitress; and as the manageress 
made a confidential friend of her there were no 
barriers up. But I called her Emily and she called 
me ‘Miss’ and I thought we shared friendship and 
respect between us until she proved spy, tell-tale, 
and liar. But she was a pretty girl. One owed her 
some gratitude for that.” 

' “You might,” said literal Lottie, “but I 
shouldn’t.” 

“Well, anyway,” continued Marion, “there we 
were, on a hot sunny afternoon in May. There 
were funny little twirls in the wet sand and I was 
much concerned to find out what caused them; 
I had never seen such at Southbay. I was poking 
at them with my sunshade and speculating aloud to 
Emily, and a man kindly volunteered the informa- 
tion.” 

“Did you know he was near?” said Lottie. 

Marion replied: “I suppose so. There was no- 
body else within a hundred yards and I’m not blind.” 

“Did you mean him to answer,” Lottie persisted. 

“Did I?” said Marion. “I don’t know. I 
hadn’t spoken to a soul outside the A.B.C. in the 
three weeks I’d been there, and of those inside, the 
maid-of-all-work, such as I’ve described her, was 
the most companionable. The being near us 
looked like a gentleman — he raised his hat courte- 
ously and half apologized for overhearing when he 
spoke to us. It was rather funny. I was im- 


130 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


mediately tongue-tied and in another minute I 
heard Emily primly remarking that Aldwich was 
noted for its prawns.” 

Lottie stared. “What?” she said, blankly. 

“Well, it was, you know. And as a conver- 
sational effort for Emily I thought it not bad. But 
the stranger lingered, and as things seemed halting 
I felt bound to help them along. He had rather 
charming manners and the three of us strolled 
along the sands together, talking, for about a 
mile.” 

“What was he like? What was his name?” 
asked Lottie, eagerly. She had lost sight of her 
solicitude for Marion in pursuit of the tale. 

“Tall, with a slight stoop. Wore eye-glasses. 
Dressed quietly, not without distinction. Plain 
features, weedy moustache, well read, well travelled, 
and staying at Baydon, at Baroness Trant’s.” 

“Did he tell you so?” asked Lottie, suspiciously. 

“I forget whether he did or not,” Marion an- 
swered, laconically, “but I know he was. I re- 
member he passed the shop with the Baroness the 
following morning. On the occasions he met me 
afterward — you see it had to be after eight — he 
usually wore a light coat over evening clothes.” 

“Marion,” said Lottie, wisely, “that fact alone 
marked it out for a folly. You weren’t wearing 
evening dress.” 

“I know,” said Marion. “I meant it for a folly. 
And it was. I told you it wasn’t a pretty story. 
I did dislike him, too. I’ve hated men who wear 
glasses ever since.” 


ALDWICH 


131 

“What happened then?” said Lottie, irritably 
and uneasily. 

“ Nothing important. He used to tell me how he 
loved the Bay don end of the parade, where the 
fields run down to the sea. As a matter of fact, I 
had told him I loved it first. And then I used to 
think I would shun that end, and then I didn’t 
see why I should. And Emily used to say: ‘Do let 
us go for a walk.’ And always she had an errand 
near Bay don. And of course we met him. And 
of course Emily went off, on her errand.” 

“Who told her she wasn’t wanted? ” asked Lottie. 

“Her senses, I suppose,” said Marion, casually. 
“I certainly didn’t. As a matter of fact, I used to 
be in a perfect panic when she left me — it was so 
perfectly odious, all of it.” 

“What was?” said Lottie. 

“Oh, I don’t know. The whole thing. The 
assumption left that he wanted my society or I 
wanted his — which I certainly and passionately 
didn’t. And the false position and the wrongness 
of it — all for nothing at all!” 

“What did you do it for, then?” said Lottie, 
practically. 

“As though you don’t know! It was just the 
excitement of it — the very wrongness and awryness 
— a sort of element of mischief and daring and risk. 
Just to give people the chance to talk — which they 
did — and laugh at their wrong constructions. And 
to go on not knowing what on earth might happen 
next!” 

Lottie said: “I thought you were so sensible. I 


i3 2 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


love a bit of fun — always did — but I never would 
have dreamed of doing a mad, insane thing like 
that.” 

“If it hadn’t been extreme I shouldn’t have 
wanted to do it,” answered Marion. She mur- 
mured, under her breath, what she dared not say 
to Lottie: “I couldn’t have got excitement out of 
flirting with the baker!” 

Lottie waxed warm to her theme. 

“Of course people said things. It was just mak- 
ing yourself a mark for scandal. And he couldn’t 
have been a nice man ” 

“He wasn’t,” interposed Marion. “I think I’ve 
said so more than once.” 

“As for being a gentleman ” went on Lottie. 

“There are so many definitions of a gentleman,” 
reminded Marion, sweetly. “I only said he looked 
like one.” 

Lottie gave it up. “Well, how did it end?” 
she said. “You deserved to be well punished for 
your folly.” 

“I was,” her sister answered. “Thoroughly! 
When you are by the sea, do you know when the 
tide comes in and goes out?” 

“Yes — no,” said Lottie. “I might. Why?” 

“Because I didn’t,” said Marion. “It never 
occurred to me to reckon from one day to another. 
And so we were caught by the tide, where the wall 
of Baydon park sweeps up from the sands, and all 
but cut off, after nine o’clock on a June night.” 

“Where were you?” asked Lottie. Her voice 
sounded tense. 


ALDWICH 


i33 


Marion remembered Lottie suddenly. She said, 
hastily: “It was nothing. You’re not upset, are 
you, Lottie? We just jumped the breakwaters.” 

“But how silly,” breathed her sister. “Mar- 
ion ” 

“Oh,” said Marion, “there’s no need to say ‘don’t 
do it again.’ Be sure I never shall. And really, it 
was almost a joke. You see I didn’t notice the 
tide coming in a bit, because he had chosen that 
spot to sit and talk where the wall curls back, and 
the sea seemed quite a long way off. Only suddenly 
I didn’t like him — he mauled my hand, and you 
know I can’t bear people to touch me ! So I jumped 
up and said I knew it was late, though I had little 
idea how late it was; nothing would induce me to 
linger a minute. Then when we got to the curve 
of the wall and had to go down the sands to round 
it, of course the tide was in — we jumped the break- 
water in nearly two feet of water. I was furiously 
angry at first . . . and then it was rather 

fun!” 

“Fun!” echoed Lottie. 

“He got so wet, and he had to be so apologetic. 
He wasn’t strong, really, and I think he was afraid 
of the wetting. We had to jump quite a lot of 
breakwaters — he tripped over one. And every 
moment I got more amused — reaction, I suppose — 
I really had been very frightened.” 

“He knew, of course, that the tide was in,” 
ventured Lottie. She hardly knew the Marion 
of this adventure. 

“I assumed, of course, that he didn’t,” Marion 


I 34 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


answered. “But he spent nearly all day every day 
lounging on the front. In the end I felt rather sorry 
for him.” 

Lottie gave an astonished “Why?” She was 
still seeing her sister trapped with this stranger by 
the encroaching sea, an unscaleable wall at her back, 
through long hours of the summer night. 

“He was deluded rather, don’t you think?” said 
Marion. “He’d wasted quite a lot of time on me. 
But I suppose he enjoyed it — as a pursuit, if as 
nothing more. We had some rather good talks, 
too,” she added, regretfully. “He’d read a lot of 
books.” 

“Did you dislike him, Mary, all the time?” 

“Utterly,” said Marion. “So utterly that when 
we said good-bye that night I even let him kiss 
me — all over my face. I thought perhaps I owed 
him as much as that. He seemed to me then a sort 
of monster. And it was odd to think of him kissing 
that mask of me, while I watched him, curious about 
it, a mile or two off.” 

VI 

There was hardly need of Lottie’s “ Did you meet 
him again after that?” and Marion’s decisive 
“Never,” to finish the story. It left Lottie, on the 
whole, curiously stimulated and relieved. At least 
half of her impatience over Marion’s freedom from 
love affairs had sprung, though she did not know it, 
from an elder-sisterly solicitude as to how she would 
comport herself among those shoals. Lottie be- 
lieved, and rightly, that Marion’s persistent 


ALDWICH 


135 


idealization, creating for her as it did men shorn of 
all human weakness, rendered her peculiarly liable 
to shipwreck. For this reason, above all others, 
she had despised her faith as crude blindness, and 
hated while she despised it. Now she was utterly 
relieved. 

Nothing could be safer, she thought, than the 
detachment of Marion’s attitude to fully recognized 
facts — that quite interested but faintly ironic de- 
tachment which the manner, even more than the 
matter, of her story gave to her sister. 

It was inevitable that Lottie should fail to see the 
matter whole, and, failing, interpret it wrongly. 
Marion’s world was still divided into the sheep and 
goats, as was betrayed by her very handling of the 
Aldwich episode. It is probable that its fabric 
might have been shattered by Walter Napier the 
night before if she had not been so occupied with 
other matters — Lottie’s illness; John Preston’s 
visit. For more than a minute revelation had 
hovered; she had had for Walter insight and pity. 
But she did not like him; he was distasteful to her. 
And she had dismissed the subject, only pausing 
upon it afterward because it linked itself — as she 
thought oddly, inscrutably — with the incident at 
Aldwich. 

It was impossible — it always is impossible — that 
a girl of Marion’s intelligence should grow up 
ignorant of life. Lottie had known that, and 
Marion’s ideal men had irritated her the more. 
But Lottie was not a sensitive dreamer as Marion 
was, and she also forgot that what knowledge girls 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


136 

get is tainted at its source. The newspaper, the 
immodest jest or rhyme, the unbalanced sex novel, 
youth’s ignorant guess and curious whisper — such, 
at the best, is the fount from which it springs. 

A subject never named by loving or reverent 
lips; on which no warning note is sounded by those 
whose counsel is constant on others. Is it not one 
that even to touch is to be defiled? Is it not one 
that can present no temptation except to the 
utterly depraved? Were it otherwise, would not 
those so constant guides and counsellors give 
counsel here? 

So, by a quite simple process of reasoning, deli- 
cate-minded youth disregards its own quite palp- 
able experiences, and divides its world into the 
sheep and the goats. The sheep know not temp- 
tation; the goats, being tempted, are depraved. If 
the poor classifier is miserably conscious of temp- 
tation, of warring instincts and impulses making 
temptation inevitable, that, alas! increases by one 
the number of the goats! But the sheep — woolly, 
white, untempted — are none the less a fact. Per- 
haps one believes in and admires them the more 
fervently for being one’s self so definitely — but, it 
is hoped, unrecognizedly — among the goats. 


Last Days 


i 

If lottie was relieved, though groundlessly, of 
her apprehensions in regard to Marion, seeing her 
no more as a vain seeker after romantic platonic 
love, suffering disillusion and heartbreak while the 
real things of life passed her by, it is certain that 
she found no grounds for becoming optimistic 
over the chances of her marrying Walter. 

Marion had expressed herself unwaveringly about 
her Aldwich admirer. First and last, she had no 
liking for him, nor had an inevitable approbation of 
his good taste recommended him. Lottie foresaw 
that it might not be enough for Walter unmistak- 
ably to admire and desire her; even though it was in 
addition to his offer of a long-loved and much- 
desired home. And Lottie naturally doubted Wal- 
ter’s power wholeheartedly to admire and desire 
Marion — while she beheld Marion standing aloof, 
still nicely discriminating in her loves and hates 
and cold-bloodedly impervious to men’s desires. 

Even as she lay, in the days that remained to her, 
intensely thinking and utterly interested in the 
things her thoughts followed, events downstairs 
were arranging and re-arranging themselves in 
patterns she knew nothing of. 

137 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


138 

Already, for Marion, Walter’s offer had re- 
coloured life at Margaret’s Mead. It was no 
longer a brief refuge from the things in business 
that were ugly and repelled her; no longer a halting 
at her childhood’s home, familiarly dear; no longer 
the fulfilment of a known duty. But instead it was 
a long dallying with a bait to tempt her, a lure to 
deceive her, a fair seeming whose substance had 
flown. 

“Will you marry me?” “No, of course not.” 
In the quiet night — wakeful nights of frequent 
attendance upon Lottie — those phrases would re- 
peat themselves in Marion’s ear; and linked to the 
first came fleeting pictures of Margaret’s Mead at 
early morn, at sunny moon, at pensive eve. She 
stepped about in sunshine, busy between house and 
garden, with happy straying thoughts born of the 
simple, homely things her eyes rested on. Or it 
was afternoon, and rain fell, and sweet fragrances 
stole in from field and garden through the open 
windows. Or evening with its leisure and the 
homestead, warm and mellow and lovely against 
dreaming tree and evening sky, greeting restfully 
homeward steps and the declining day, promising 
shelter and refreshment and repose. 

No sordid pictures blemished Marion s memories 
of Margaret’s Mead; life staged itself there in ideal 
settings. And yet how quick and sharp quite other 
pictures followed the denying sentence: “No, of 
course not.” 

Walter, stimulating, jeering, aggressive; Walter, 
summarizing what he owned and offering it; 


LAST DAYS 


i39 

Walter, daring to foresee himself as part of her 
component whole — “the human unit” she had heard 
him call it! Here she tried violently to turn the 
current of her thoughts with a rapid, “No, no! 
Don’t think about it,” but images of Walter were 
obtrusive. Walter, desiring with his eyes and 
thickened voice every part of her that mattered 
nothing — her resemblances to Lottie, her mere 
fleshly covering and outer presentment of tints and 
curves — “all that is not me,” thought Marion, 
“and within and without which I exist unknown of 
him.” Walter, reluctantly recognizing that un- 
known Ego of hers, and thereupon setting himself 
deliberately the task of wooing it — unloved and un- 
desired as it was — for what went with it. Walter, 
uncouth and capable; Walter, over-sexed and 
cynical; Walter, aggressively boasting the things 
he wished least to be. 

“I could never marry him,” Marion told herself, 
busily dressing a salad she could not trust to Elate. 
“And now it is linked with him I hate the thought 
of Margaret’s Mead.” 

Walter came in from the courtyard and, observ- 
ing her task, silently set his gun down, washed his 
hands at the trough, and swiftly and adroitly sliced 
a cucumber for her. As he did so he told her what 
he had shot, and where, and asked if she and Lottie 
had watched the sunset. Marion felt, as she had 
done often before, the man’s intense physical 
magnetism assail her, defying her to be too sure of 
her power of denial. 

She answered him, thanking him smilingly for his 


140 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


help, and putting forth all her power of self-control 
to keep her voice casual and her eyes calm. His 
very presence created in her a panic of disturbance 
and insurrection which she prayed his watching 
eyes might not see. 

“I shall ask Clark if he can recommend a 
trained nurse to-morrow,” he remarked, presently. 
“Were the kiddies in bed when you got home?” 
Marion had been with Walter to Minterne, shop- 
ping. 

“Yes,” she replied, startled. She was consider- 
ing his first announcement. “Why?” 

“I told Phyllis not to worry you if they were,” 
said Walter, calmly. “I think Clare is sickening 
for measles.” 

Marion’s heart sank. She said, unbelievingly: 

“What makes you think so? She was well 
enough when I left this morning.” 

“I do think so,” said Walter, “and I don’t think 
I’m wrong. Go and have a look at her. I’ve told 
Phyllis what to do until the doctor sees her. I’ve 
had Bobbie’s cot put in my room.” 

“I can take Bobbie,” said Marion, hastily, and 
stopped. She was sleeping in the dressing room 
that opened out of Lottie’s to be at hand in the 
night. So she added, quickly: 

“Will can take him. Why should you?” 

“Will’s room is next to Lottie’s,” Walter re- 
minded her. “There’d be too much noise in the 
early morning. I’ll look after Bobbie. But we 
must get a nurse for Lottie to set you free after to- 
night.” 


LAST DAYS 


141 

f 

Marion asked, anxiously: “Will not a nurse 
worry Lottie? Did you see Doctor Clark to-day ?” 

“I did. Lottie’s too sensible to worry over a 
kid having measles and the fact will sufficiently 
account for the need of a nurse. So, personally, 
I think it’s rather lucky. Clark agreed with me 
to-day that you must not continue to nurse 
her.” 

Marion flushed angrily. “It is what I came here 
for,” she said, hastily. 

“Is it?” said Walter, calmly. “Take it from 
me that I never agreed to that proposition, 
once Lottie required close attention. There are 
seeds one does not plant in suitable soil. You 
were and are very necessary to Lottie ; agreed. But 
sisters with joint hereditary tendencies shouldn’t 
nurse one another.” He added, grimly: “Don’t 
persist in mixing me up with Will.” 

Marion ran upstairs to look at Clare and interro- 
gate Phyllis. It seemed to her that Walter followed, 
diagnosing and dominating, by her side. His 
unfailing rightness about things oppressed her. 
Of course it would prove to be measles — the shep- 
herd’s children had it — and the nurse would come 
and cares and responsibilities multiply. How did 
Walter know anything about measles? 

Walter made no mystery of that but directed her 
with a gesture, when she asked him, to the source 
of his information on the bookshelf. He gave her 
the page number, and when she had found it came 
behind her and ran his large finger along the symp- 
toms and treatment. His sleeve brushed her 


142 MARGARET’S MEAD 

shoulder. Marion pushed her chair back, saying, 
impatiently : 

“ Where’s Will? Supper is ready.” 

Walter looked up and out. 

“Coming,” he said, “with Mr. Preston, ap- 
parently.” 

ii 

The two men were, indeed, coming across the 
paddock, and Marion had just time to make sure of 
the fact before Kate, entering with the lamp, pulled 
down the blinds. She said to her, hastily: 

“Take the lamp into the oak room, Kate,” 
whereupon Walter’s look asked her, sneering, why 
she should think Preston was coming in. 

But he was, and, as Marion had anticipated, Will 
took him through courtyard and kitchen straight to 
the one lighted room, she reflecting, rightly, that 
but for her foresight it would have been to the one 
where the table was laid for supper. As it was she 
wondered, annoyed, why it should be through court- 
yard and kitchen and why — glimpsing them as they 
passed into the oak room — Will kept his hat on. 

Walter had not failed to notice also the offending 
hat, and as he followed her to the kitchen his keen 
glance gathered malice. Undoubtedly he had his 
pleasure in seeing Marion’s sense of fitness out- 
raged. Unfailingly his glance said to her: “True, 
he’s my brother. He’s also the man your sister has 
chosen. After all, one can’t choose one’s brother!” 

Marion said, shortly: “I wonder what he 
wants.” 


LAST DAYS 


M3 


“Preston, do you mean?” said Walter. “I can 
tell you what he’s supposed to want. The fishing.” 

Marion stifled her reply; but if she expected si- 
lence to provoke information from Walter she was 
disappointed. He watched quite equably Kate’s 
preparation of a lamp for the dining room and 
heard Marion exhorting her to prepare them in 
the daylight and not to leave them until just when 
they were wanted. Will came out of the oak 
room, obviously looking for them. 

“Have you made up your mind about the rent?” 
he asked his brother. 

Walter looked at Marion curiously. She was 
unfeignedly indifferent. He asked, deliberately: 

“Is that what he’s come for? I thought I was 
to let him know.” 

“Oh, yes,” said Will. “But we got talking.” 
He followed his brother’s glance to Marion and 
strove to banter. “He really came to bring a book 
to Marion.” 

Marion looked up at him. His full, sallow face 
was lined with preoccupation and fear for Lottie so 
that he could not taste the flavour of his own teas- 
ing jest. She realized that he had welcomed Mr. 
Preston’s society because it would please Lottie. 
She moved to him with sympathetic compunction. 

“Lottie wants you,” she said. She removed the 
offending hat. “Walter can see Mr. Preston. 
Don’t wear your hat upstairs; Lottie won’t like it.” 

As he followed her implied instructions numbly 
and to the letter she murmured, sympathetically, 
“Poor old Will!” 


144 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


Walter followed her ruling, too, perforce, his eyes 
red and angry and bitterness at his heart. He 
recognized the skilfulness of her retaliation — the 
thrust at his wound with weapons that were 
Lottie’s. 

But he left Marion sad as well as triumphant. It 
was no pleasure to her that Walter could be stabbed 
through Will’s right to Lottie. She was tired of 
watching the two men suffer, and of realizing that 
of the two Walter suffered more. She thought his 
passion for her sister merely hopelessly wrong, and 
was helplessly angered that his suffering should 
seem to lend it dignity and sanction. As for the 
attempt at a jest about Mr. Preston — it was merely 
inevitable to their type of mind. 

When Kate’s entrance disturbed her musing, 
Marion moved from the window whence she looked 
into the deepening twilight and recalled Will’s 
mention of a book. 

She sauntered after Walter into the oak room. 
hi 

John Preston was conscious that Napier’s eyes 
watched him, lynx like, as he shook hands with 
Marion, and he jumped to the conclusion that the 
kitchen talk was well founded. Reluctantly but 
fair-mindedly he had revised his opinion of Walter. 
He did not like him but he ceased to hold him in 
contempt. 

“Your brother-in-law told me this was the best 
time to find Mr. Napier in,” he said to Marion, 
“so as I was coming I brought this book along. I 


LAST DAYS 


145 

was on my way to give it to Warner to bring out in 
the morning.” 

Marion stole a glance at Walter as she gave her 
thanks for the book. And Mr. Preston added: 

“Only I notice you have here an excellent edition 
of Montaigne.” 

Marion followed his glance to the low book- 
shelves. She answered, quickly: 

“A quite useless one in this house. You will 
find Ibsen and Goethe, too. But they are all in the 
original.” 

Walter drew a book out with his clumsy fingers 
and threw it open on the table. Apparently the 
small business transaction was concluded. His 
eye showed pride in the fine letterpress as John 
Preston took up the book with an exclamation, but 
his lip was curled in a sneer. 

“Hardly useless,” he answered Marion, and 
turned on his heel. He added explanatorily from 
the door: “The books are mine. I never read 
translations. Good-night, Mr. Preston.” 

John Preston put the book gently down. He took 
a long, quiet look at Marion. He remarked, re- 
flectively: 

“So that is Walter Napier!” 

Marion looked up. She had been obviously and 
intensely surprised by Walter’s remark and looked 
up out of her bewilderment. She said, simply: 

“Had you not met him before?” 

“I had never spoken to him,” said Mr. Preston. 
He was keenly aware of the new note that discus- 
sion of her people must give to their intimacy. 


MARGARETS MEAD 


146 

“I have heard ... a good deal of him. He 
ought to be in teres ting.” 

Marion said, “Why?” She could hardly have 
said more plainly that she found him repulsive. 
John Preston gave a pitying thought to the man 
who in this solitude took pains to read the literature 
of three nations in the original. Nevertheless 

“You should ask Aunt Frances to tell you about 
him,” he answered her, lightly, but there was a hint 
of amused retrospection in his voice. Obviously 
he was not displeased with what Marion must hear. 
Then he noticed that she looked both tired and sad. 
He asked, hastily: 

“How is your sister?” 

Marion’s reply was sufficiently expressive in its 
sadness. “She suffers a great deal,” she answered 
him. “And that’s not all. Walter thinks little 
Clare has measles.” She looked worried. “I 
don’t know whether you ought to be here. I am 
thinking of Dorothea.” 

In his concern he missed the last part of her 
sentence. He said, anxiously: 

“I don’t know much about illness, but surely you 
mustn’t nurse both patients?” 

Marion said, frankly, “ I don’t know, either. But 
Walter has made up his mind I am to give up nurs- 
ing Lottie.” 

Preston uttered, surprised : “Walter ! What does 
your sister’s husband say? ” 

Marion shook her head. “I don’t know and it 
doesn’t matter,” she replied. “You see Will 
doesn’t count. I want to continue to nurse Lottie. 


LAST DAYS 


i47 

Walter has decided that in any event I must 
not.” 

“I am sure he is right,” said John Preston, but 
very kindly. He had said no word of farewell 
though he moved to go and Marion followed him 
to the porch mechanically. She said there: 

“You will explain to Miss Frances why I do not 
come.” 

“Will you not come?” he answered, protesting. 
“You must have some change, some relief. Aunt 
will drive over and fetch you.” 

“There’s Dorothea,” began Marion. Oddly but 
instinctively she clung to the atmosphere of 
friendliness he brought with him and wished him to 
linger. She knew, without analyzing her knowl- 
edge, that to him and in a lesser degree to Miss 
Frances her welfare was of quite real importance. 

“Dorothea?” He seemed checked. He had 
entirely lost sight of the measles. They stood 
together in the warm dark. Marion reminded 
him. 

He said, dismissing the matter: “Dorothea’s 
not a child. She’s had them. But we must see 
what can be done.” To that he added abruptly: 
“But you are happy here?” 

“Happy?” Out of some confusion of thought 
Marion considered that she probably was happy at 
that moment. “I suppose I am,” she said, doubt- 
fully, “in patches. So far as one can be happy at 
all. Do you remember Stevenson? ” 

“Stevenson?” He echoed her, perplexed. 

“Yes. In the ‘Vailima Letters.’ He was writ- 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


148 

ing to his friend. I think he made the supposition 
like this: ‘Methought you asked me — frankly, was 
I happy? Happy (said I) ; I was happy once. . . . 
But I know pleasure still; pleasure with a thousand 
faces, and none perfect; a thousand tongues all 
broken; a thousand hands, and all of them with 
scratching nails’.” 

John Preston asked her, curiously: “Were you 
1 happy once’?” 

Marion answered: “Never admittedly. Were 
you?” She could have taken back her words as a 
folly, remembering his prosperity and her recollec- 
tions of the early days of his marriage. For some 
reason she was glad when he answered: 

“I have only thought myself so.” 

She said, sagely: “That is to be happy.” But 
to herself she added: “He married for love; it was 
a blunder, not a crime.” She heard the hall clock 
strike and said hastily: “I must go in; good- 
night.” 

From the porch she watched him down the path, 
saw him pause to light a cigarette, and turned 
puzzled into the house. 

She had offered her hand frankly in farewell and 
it had not been taken. Certainly it had not been 
purposely ignored, and yet . . . “After all,” 

Marion argued, “one always shakes hands.” 

Walter was still waiting for supper, with rather a 
grim look. She ran up for a final look at Clare, 
restlessly tossing in her sleep, and then to summon 
Will from Lottie. All the time she remained pre- 
occupied with something strange, and intangible as 


LAST DAYS 149 

strange, in Mr. Preston’s manner. Why would he 
not shake hands? 


IV 

Lottie was pleased, even childishly pleased, when 
she heard the next day that Mr. Preston had walked 
over from Greyladies with Will. Marion said 
nothing that would tend to mitigate her pleasure and 
heard, without the least resentment, Lottie appro- 
priating her friend for her husband. Only she 
wondered, with strange pangs, both at the quantity 
and quality of Lottie’s pleasure. Lottie to whom, in 
but a few more days, nothing on earth mattered. 

The nurse was installed and in charge when the 
end came, Marion engrossed in fighting for life with 
little Clare. She was called from the one bedside 
to the other: Will was there and Walter; the first 
cold beams of dawn in the room and a red rose 
leaning through the window and scattering its 
crimson petals on the floor. 

Lottie murmured, faintly: “I didn’t think yester- 
day that I should outlive that rose, Marion. One 
last petal . . . there!” She gave her fond 

smile to her husband and then with closed eyes 
added: “Don’t knock yourself up nursing Clare, 
Mary. Nurse will be able to take on.” 

It had not been thought well to harass her with 
the truth that Clare’s tenure of life seemed almost 
as slender as her own. The moments passed: 
hushed moments, marked by her breathing, but 
Lottie spoke no more. A final serenity set its seal 
upon her lips. 


MARGARET'S MEAD 


150 

Marion must hasten back to her other patient, 
for the crisis was not yet over for Clare. Why 
should she strive to keep the child from her mother? 
Why did it seem so utterly urgent that Death 
should not claim one victim more? Marion felt 
she would lose hold on life herself if Clare’s little 
limbs became stretched in death, and anxiety that 
Bobbie should escape infection throbbed in her 
bosom like a frenzy. 

Bobbie had been sent with Phyllis to Grey ladies 
the day after Mr. Preston’s evening call. He had 
come next morning with an eager invitation from 
his aunt and Marion had gladly let Bobbie go, it 
seemed so plainly the wise and hopeful thing to do. 
She had only seen him from the window, since, 
coaxed to look up at her by Phyllis or Dorothea. 
Once or twice Miss Frances had called in her 
low fourwheel, and Mr. Preston had come every 
day. 

Of the two households thus suddenly and 
intimately drawn together Miss Frances and Mr. 
John seemed to Marion the living and healing 
figures. Walter and Will were rigid unrealities, 
who watched her contest afar off — she fighting 
disease and death, and fighting, as it seemed to her, 
vainly and blindly. 

Hours passed of necessity before the nurse came 
from her last attendance on Lottie to relieve her. 
She said to Marion, gently: 

( “I shall take on. I have sat up less than you.” 

Marion, unheeding, asked: “What do you think 
of her?” The nurse answered, wisely but quite 


LAST DAYS 


151 

untruly: “ She’s out of danger. I’ve seen a lot of 
measles.” 

The measure of Marion’s exhaustion was that she 
believed her. Her face relaxed. The nurse added, 
acting on a belief in hypnotic suggestion: “You will 
help most by going to bed.” 

She was relieved when Marion obeyed her and 
still more relieved when, an hour later, she entered 
her room to find her deep in sleep. Stepping 
quietly she did her best to steep the room in shadow. 
Rain fell softly: she thanked God that Clare was 
really a little better and Lottie permanently at rest. 


i 








\ 





















* 


% 















WINTER 




The Stuff of Life 
i 

At half-past two on a Monday afternoon in late 
November, Marion came downstairs dressed for a 
walk to Greyladies. There was a great regularity 
in her comings and goings, her well-ordered house- 
hold proving to demand of her something of the 
precision of clockwork. So on Monday immediately 
after dinner she gave Kate what instructions were 
necessary in regard to the baker, the time for tea — 
which on this day varied to suit the men of the 
house — and any early preparations for supper. 
Then she changed her dress to ensure the right 
holiday feeling, and came down in time to say good- 
bye to the children and see them started for their 
afternoon outing. 

Monday had become her regular day for Grey- 
ladies. She had fought against it at first as being 
too near Sunday, but Tuesday was Minterne mar- 
ket day and more often than not she must go in 
with Walter or Will, shopping. Wednesday was 
Kate’s afternoon off and Thursday Phyllis’s; on 
Friday Miss Frances was rarely free, while Saturday 
often meant Minterne again, so she had yielded to 
force of circumstances. The regularity of her Mon- 
day visit she liked, because it ensured her being ex- 
155 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


156 

pected, a thing she found almost as pleasant as Miss 
Frances found the expectation. And so Monday 
became the second happy day of the week. 

For in spite of Will’s scowls and Walter’s ob- 
jections Marion had made it plain to them that she 
claimed half, at least, of Sunday for her own, and 
the rule had come to be that she should drive back 
from church with Miss Frances to lunch at Grey- 
ladies and walk home in time to pour out tea at 
half-past four. 

Marion had vivid memories of these Sundays and 
Mondays, contrasting sharply as they did with her 
busy, solitary life at Margaret’s Mead. There was 
the sense of leisure and quietude; the happy, 
sympathetic intercourse with Miss Frances — the 
stimulus of a mind rich in experience, whose eager, 
acquisitive zest age could not stale. There were the 
long talks with Mr. John — when he could be got to 
talk. For oddly, strangely, as Marion thought at 
first, there were times when this friend, intimate 
and familiar as the place assigned to her at Grey- 
ladies made him seem, was less accessible, far less 
ready with word and smile, than Mr. John of 
Southbay. 

On the other hand, speech from him, when it did 
come, was a thing to Marion of much rarer delight, 
so that the friendship of Southbay days came to 
seem to her, looking back, an incomprehensibly dry 
affair. And their companionship sprung a note of 
silence and of wordlessness — words became easily 
too many and too clumsy for thoughts conveyed 
swiftly, on a glance or smile, and understood with 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


i57 


the complete comprehension born of instinctive 
intimacy. Even Mr. John’s withdrawals and in- 
accessibilities came to put on that air of particular 
intimate intercourse, as though in them he chal- 
lenged, and challenging evoked, Marion’s utter un- 
derstanding. 

She remembered, among their long talks, that in 
which he had told her of Walter, giving her the 
salient facts of his past as his aunt had reminis- 
cently related them. Walter as a youth, a haunter 
of barns for gambling and boxing, of stables and 
inns for racing tips; the riotous promoter of cock 
fights and rabbit coursing — brutal pleasures of a 
past generation that linger and die hard in the re- 
mote countryside. Then the violent reaction — the 
very “street-corner conversion” of Lottie’s jest; and 
restless energy in full career again; preaching, pray- 
ing, intemperate advocacy of temperance and 
intemperate abstinence — strong drink, flesh foods, 
all representations of physical beauty, violently 
arraigned and violently eschewed. 

And at last the too-quick cooling of too-hot fer- 
vour; the swing of the pendulum from narrow 
dogmatism to crudest unbelief; and the present and 
final product; the brutal violence of the first phase 
and the dogmatic bigotry of the second retained in 
the service of blatant Materialism, with Social 
Progress for its creed and Intellect for its god. 

John Preston in his story did not fail to recognize 
the very human reason for Walter’s transformations, 
portraying him at his worst as no more than bitterly 
reckless in his search for outlet for the energy that 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


158 

was in him; belief and unbelief alike a fierce and 
glad acceptance of what most nearly expressed his 
changing conception of the truth. And for his best 
he could not but point out the swift, stark sincerity 
with which word and deed followed conviction. 
In whatever he chose to express he saw Walter 
Napier as a force to be reckoned with. Strong of 
will and of mind, of inexhaustible energy, with an 
insatiable thirst for the knowledge that is power and 
an unchanging determination to stand by his 
findings — here was a man to fear rather than to 
despise. 

As John Preston talked it is conceivable that 
both he and Marion kept within their inward vision 
the picture of one brief, illuminating incident. 
An ugly untended hand that drew a book out 
of a row — a book bound in leather, of strong hand- 
made paper and fine letterpress — and the challenge 
of the gesture that threw all under their eyes. 
Then the harsh, arrogant rejoinder — • 

“Hardly useless ... I never read trans- 
lations.” Doubtless Walter guessed that John 
Preston, as well as Marion, read for choice and 
pleasure in one language only. 

It is not strange that Marion felt — and feeling, 
resented — John Preston’s story as recommending 
Walter to her. Was he, indeed, endeavouring to 
paint him as desirable, pointing out to her his 
general eligibility? For she did not doubt but that 
Mr. John had heard, through Miss Frances, of 
Walter’s pursuit of her. 

And, of course, he had. Nor was Marion’s 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


i59 


discernment in the least at fault. Quite stubbornly 
John Preston persuaded himself of the desirability 
of Marion’s marrying Walter. He was wealthy 
(John Preston would have smiled at the account of 
his income Walter had chosen to give Marion), 
ambitious, far above the average of his class. A 
fanatic, an extremist, without culture, be it granted, 
but for all that a man of parts and a scholar, certain 
to go far. He took a grim and wilful pleasure in 
dilating on all this and watching Marion become 
irritated, disdainful, petulantly angry. Not for a 
glimmering moment of time did he glimpse the 
alternate attraction and repulsion that Napier had, 
in fact, for her. Not for one instant did he dream 
that any pulse of Marion’s had leapt to an attrac- 
tion she disowned. The girl had succeeded sin- 
gularly in her woman’s task of imposing on him 
the semblance of her seeming; helped by man’s 
curious belief that the only women who are ever 
tempted are those who fall. 

11 

John Preston’s commendations of Walter were, 
however, in the far background of Marion’s 
thoughts on this Monday in November as she came 
down ready for her walk to Greyladies. The 
person uppermost at the moment was none other 
than Phyllis the nursemaid, whom she could hear 
making final preparations to take the children 
out. 

Phyllis was a pale dark girl a few months younger 
than Marion. She was slight and graceful and in 


160 MARGARET’S MEAD 

the neat mourning black that Will had insisted on 
providing for the two maids looked refined and 
ladylike. Up to a few weeks back Marion had 
thought rather well of Phyllis, she seemed so 
thorough and capable, taking complete and careful 
charge of the two children and identifying their 
interests with her own. 

But since then things had happened, and Marion 
was aware of waiting for her to come down with 
sensations of utter distaste and dislike. Phyllis 
was an inveterate gossip, a malicious scandal- 
monger; but Marion had always known it and 
perhaps idly encouraged her when her talk pro- 
vided tit-bits to amuse Lottie. She was self-seeking 
and vain — Marion had sense enough to view such 
traits tolerantly, and was, moreover, a mistress 
consistently courteous and kind. Yet as presently 
Phyllis came down the stairs carrying Bobbie and 
chattering to him gaily, hostility and dislike were 
as patent in her face as in that of Marion waiting 
for her below. 

Phyllis settled Bobbie in his pram, arranging 
everything nicely and only biting her lips a little 
when her charge sent a chuckling laugh and lisping 
word toward Marion. Marion bent over and 
kissed him with a gabble of the nonsense that 
children love. Then Clare had a lot to tell her, and 
without relaxing her indulgent smile for the children 
she asked Phyllis, concisely: 

“ Where are you taking them?” 

“Along the Minterne Road, Miss, as far as Church 
Lane, and back by Zetlands.” 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 161 

Marion said quickly: “It is too muddy to come 
back by Zetlands. ” 

Phyllis finished fussing with Bobbie and straight- 
ened herself with rather insolent deliberation: she 
carried her head well always: it was now very 
high. 

“It is muddy, Miss,” she agreed. “Mr. Walter 
told me to come back that way.” 

Marion bent to Clare. “Tell Uncle Walter it is 
his fault you are so dirty,” she said, with a quite 
sweet smile as she kissed her. “Good-bye, sweet- 
heart.” 

Clare hugged her round the neck, wildly dis- 
arranging her hair, while Phyllis waited with lamb- 
like patience. Because the demonstration of 
ardent affection annoyed Phyllis, Marion en- 
couraged it, though she wished to be neat. When 
at last they were gone her eyes and cheeks flamed 
with wrath. She said, vehemently: “It’s abomi- 
nable, abominable!” 

She fastened her gloves viciously. The direction 
of her thoughts was made quite plain by an added: 

“I should like to kill Walter!” 

She started on her way. 

hi 

Marion could have named the very hour in which, 
for her, Phyllis came out of the vague background 
of life to be woven, with startling effect, into its 
pattern. She had felt the queer surprise and faint 
resentment which usually greets that phenomenon. 
Some familiar figure, an employee, a shop-assistant, 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


162 

a patient or a client, amazingly steps out of the 
place where it has played its accustomed part — 
worked to our orders, served us with hair-wash, 
detailed its ailments or stated its case — and essays 
to project itself into our lives as a being of passions, 
emotions, and claims like our own ! We are amazed, 
an amazement tinged with resentment; failing to 
recognize that it is mainly the familiarity of the 
figure in another role that occasions our disconcert- 
ment. A stranger would not have achieved it. 
We meet him on a different footing, prepared for 
dull or interesting developments. But Jones who 
takes down our letters and wiggles his pencil when 
we pause for a sentence; the lady behind the bottles 
who dresses her hair so cutely; any one of the 
stream of patients who so irritatingly halt over 
obviously connected symptoms; Brown who be- 
comes tempestuous over a claimed “ right of way” or 
“ancient lights” and Phyllis whose part is so plainly 
to bathe Bobbie and look neat when she takes him 
out — how dare they suddenly encroach upon our 
lives, those vivid threads we work at so assiduously, 
and claim a share in making or marring the pattern? 

It is odd that one has to make a nice distinction 
in this matter between, say, employer and employee 
or doctor and patient, and heaps of parallel cases. 
Almost a class distinction, at the mere mention of 
which we tremble. For the decisions of the em- 
ployer and the doctor are usually too vital, too 
direct a factor in our lives to permit them to take 
on background colour. Moreover, they are single 
individuals — one doctor, one employer — not mere 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


163 

members of a group, barely distinguishable from 
their fellows and thought of often in the mass as 
employees and patients are. They are unmistak- 
ably of the stuff of life, with direct and discernible 
reactions on our lives, and take their place ac- 
cordingly. So much, at least, we accede to them. 
Hence Marion had never been to Phyllis an in- 
considerable figure, and the jar of changed relations 
had been felt by her alone. 

IV 

It had all come about over a question of wages. 
Marion was engaged with Walter upon the ac- 
counts, a task she had come to share with him 
always, partly because she liked it and partly be- 
cause it threw them into close contact. Walter had 
still for her something of the attraction of un- 
explored country — whatever she came upon was 
sure to savour of the unexpected. 

On this occasion they had been trying to hit upon 
a simple scheme for separating household and farm 
accounts — not an easy matter, as things were 
managed at Margaret’s Mead. Marion was in- 
clined to think it mere hair-splitting at first, but 
Walter’s unheeding persistence beguiled her, and 
she became as intent on the problem as he. These 
were their moments of expansive friendliness. 

She came to the item of Phyllis’s wages and 
paused upon it, thinking. Out of her thoughts she 
remarked to Walter, pointing to it: 

“She is worth more. You will have to raise her 
wages.” 


164 


MARGARET'S MEAD 


“ Sixteen pounds and her keep/' mused Walter. 
“I don't think so. Why should I?" 

‘‘She is worth more," repeated Marion. 

“Very likely," said Walter. “What has that 
to do with it? She is better paid now than any 
man on the farm." 

Marion retorted his question: “What has that to 
do with it?" 

He disregarded her. 

“I should like to know which of the men could 
keep himself out of his wages as Phyllis is kept — 
housed and fed — and have sixteen pounds a year 
left " 

Marion interrupted him. 

“Everybody knows," she remarked, “that agri- 
cultural labour is shamefully underpaid." 

“Why ‘agricultural’?" asked Walter. “Say la- 
bour as a whole and I’ll agree. My men on even 
sixteen shillings a week, with no rent to pay and 
unlimited firewood and vegetables — — " 

“Are better off than the townsman at thirty 
shillings," concluded Marion. “I know all that. 
Though you shouldn’t forget that firewood and 
vegetables have to be worked for." She stared at 
him straightly. “You get more than your share 
from the bargain." 

“Do I?" He had the look of a man braced for 
enjoyable debate. 

Marion put her hands to her ears. “Don't!" 
she said. “There’s no need to stun me with argu- 
ments about the value of business brains, and 
interest on capital, and inducements for initiative 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


165 

and investment, and competition of foreign markets 
— I know it all. And I still say labour is underpaid 
and the next social revolution will take place when 
labour sufficiently realizes it.” 

“Hear, hear,” said Walter. “Quite an oration! 
A pity to preach to the converted.” 

“Converted!” retorted Marion, with contempt, 
and rapped the wages book smartly with her pen. 
“Converted, with this in front of us!” 

Walter Napier’s tanned face grew sardonic. 
“Shall I raise the scale throughout?” he asked. 
“I don’t mind being unpopular, as you know. I 
think it highly probable I could get Garlogs on my 
own terms then. Brown has bother enough with 
his labour already. If they get more discontented 
and leave he’d never get new men to come to his 
cottages. And he nearly came to grief over the hay 
crop — he couldn’t afford to put them in repair.” 

Marion answered: “I told you it would take a 
revolution to put things straight.” 

“And I agreed,” Walter reminded her. “You 
also said it would take place when labour sufficiently 
realizes that it’s underpaid. I’m doing my best to 
make it realize it. The problem’s not to be solved 
by making exceptional cases. Find better housed 
and better paid men than mine if you can! Any 
more cheap sneers?” 

“I often wonder,” said Marion, “that we don’t 
like each other better.” 

Walter glanced up quickly and suspiciously; 
Marion’s face was calm. He answered, after a 
pause: 


i66 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“I like you as well as I ever intend to. Shall I 
add anything to that? ” 

“No,” said Marion. Walter recognized the fact 
that there was neither haste nor alarm in her voice. 
She added very deliberately but quite kindly: 
“Won’t you give up the idea, Walter?” 

The quality of her voice appealed to him, but so 
did her beauty. He hardened his face to brutality 
and stared at her steadily, hoping to see her eyes 
drop, but Marion did not quail. Failing in one 
direction he muttered, hoping to shock her: 

“When you are dead, like Lottie.” 

But Marion hardly heard; she followed thoughts 
of her own to which acquiescence or refusal alone 
mattered. She gave a soft sigh and returned to 
her starting point with: 

“What about Phyllis?” 

He said, slightingly: “Why this anxiety?” 

“She’s a clever girl,” said Marion, “and the 
children like her. It would be hard to replace her 
in the country. I happen to know she’s had a 
better offer from the town.” 

“Has she?” said Walter, interested. “Who 
told you? ” 

“It reached the cook at Greyladies,” Marion 
answered. 

“I see. Do you like the girl?” 

“Well enough,” said Marion. “She’s rather 
superior, don’t you think so?” 

It was on Walter’s tongue to say that he had 
never particularly noticed her, but he changed his 
mind. He answered, rather slowly: 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


167 


“Yes, I do." 

Marion was surprised. She had taken Walter's 
indifference for granted. She was more surprised 
when after a minute or two he went on, haltingly: 

“I knew her in her early 'teens. As a matter of 
fact, at that time, her eldest brother and I were 
thick as thieves." 

“Were you?" said Marion. He shot a quick 
glance at her and noticed with satisfaction the dis- 
taste and disturbance momentarily visible in her 
face. She checked an inclination to ask if the sit- 
uation had not been a trifle awkward. 

“So you see," Walter went on, “I've rather 
avoided the girl. But I’ll think about it. From 
many points of view I shouldn't like her to leave." 
A second glimpse of Marion’s disturbance decided 
him. He concluded: 

“I’ve got to make sure of someone for the kids." 

Marion stood up. She replied, with her head 
high: 

“That was my point." 

v 

Walter agreed to raise Phyllis's wages the next 
day, which pleased Marion in places. What did 
not please her was that he should seize an early 
opportunity of lingering beside the girl in the garden 
to say: 

“By the way, how’s Tom getting on in Canada?" 

That was the beginning, but by now Marion 
looked back over a long vista of incidents, some 
slight and trivial enough, yet none the less surely 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


1 68 

bringing about an utterly impossible situation. 
Walter openly following Phyllis’s movements with 
his eyes and courting opportunities for casual 
speech with her; covertly watching Marion the 
while, but not so covertly that she failed entirely to 
perceive it; finding jobs for the girl that interfered 
with her set duties — mending for him, or docketing 
files, or labelling seeds in packets, or tidying the 
drawers of his bureau; amusing himself with the 
spectacle of Marion’s resentment — the natural 
resentment of the mistress which she must none the 
less disguise or conceal, lest Walter should throw 
it back to her as jealousy, which he did not fail to 
do by look or gesture whenever Marion, to keep 
up the merest pretence of authority, was compelled 
to contravene his orders. 

Phyllis, meanwhile, was inordinately flattered, 
stepping about at Walter’s bidding with immense 
importance, and soon watchful for his glance or 
word or smile. Marion knew well the danger of 
the subtle flattery of a master’s notice and was, 
betimes, intensely sorry for the girl, until concern 
was overlaid by utter dislike, bom of Phyllis’s 
insolent airs and temper and the intolerable position 
created. 

The girl had not the wit to see herself as a decoy 
for Marion, though she had enough to be intensely 
jealous of her, and her attitude to her mistress 
became a constant insult. 

More than once at first, wishing to preserve her 
from the folly of believing Walter serious, Marion 
had deliberately put herself about to please him. 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 169 

He had responded, in his diabolical astuteness, 
with so much display that tongues were set wagging 
freely in the kitchen and Marion had the pleasure 
of knowing herself discussed as a competitor with 
Phyllis! To herself Walter made no secret of his 
attitude or purpose. Gradually but deliberately 
he had contrived to fill the blank in his life left by 
Lottie with the fierce desire for her sister. Not 
even to Marion did he name this passion love: he 
knew it to be unworthy of himself and her. But he 
let it sway him, acting on its suggestions and 
compulsions with so much of violence to his nature 
as kept him perpetually goaded by his pain. 

His two brief utterances summed up both atti- 
tude and purpose Will you marry me?” and “I’ve 
got to make sure of someone for the kids.” He 
knew Marion had grown to love them both de- 
votedly and could not imagine her yielding them up 
to Phyllis, so he had caught eagerly at the oppor- 
tunity of presenting her with that alternative to 
marriage with himself. For awhile he had been at 
a loss what to do to make his suit urgent; it had 
seemed easily possible that things might stay as 
they were for ever — indeed, he was aware of losing 
ground rather than gaining it. But now he had 
made the existing position intolerable for Marion. 
He waited for her next move. 

Would Walter go so far as to marry Phyllis? 
That was only one of the questions Marion asked 
herself as she walked. The only possible answer 
to it was that in any event she must stay to watch 
the play no longer. To do so was to be dragged 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


170 

unresisting through the mud. The Napiers were 
always impossible people! 

To such decision another voice within her an- 
swered: “Then do you abandon Bobbie and Clare? 
Leave them to grow up with Phyllis’s people, to 
catch Phyllis’s accent, to have their horizon 
bounded by Phyllis’s ideas ! Lottie’s children ! And 
say good-bye for ever to Margaret’s Mead? ” 

She answered that voice stubbornly: “It 
won’t matter in the long run. Will is certain to 
marry again when he’s got over his first stupor of 
grief. No action of mine would prevent that.” 
Combatant forces within her answered: “You 
might exert some influence, though. Walter and 
you together would succeed in deciding the question 
of their education and upbringing.” 

Marion spumed herself for a hypocrite. She 
knew in her heart that she was not of the stuff to 
sacrifice herself for a questionable good; she knew 
that the problem for her was none of these things. 
It lay in the fact that she would take a long farewell 
of Greyladies when she left Margaret’s Mead. 

VI 

Marion’s mood finally turned from retrospection 
to the sheer joy of living at the sight of a dark pine 
standing in sunshine against blue sky. Since noon 
the weather had changed from soft warmth and 
misty rain to clear sunshine and fine, keen air, and 
throughout her walk glimpse after glimpse of 
arresting beauty had appealed against the dun 
colour of her worried retrospective thoughts. 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


171 

Her pace slackened and lingered as she neared 
the pine that she might not too quickly pass it by. 
Colour, form, and contrast sharply impressed the 
eye. Marion was sensitive enough to all three to 
find mere consciousness, at times, too sharp a joy. 
Expression failed her; boundless gladness and 
expansive gratitude filled her mind wholly. Space 
seemed not wide enough to contain her joy and yet 
even the most inadequate expression was denied 
her. All she could do was to break inwardly into 
passionate Te Deums, into broken words of fervent 
thanksgiving — thanksgiving mainly for all con- 
sciousness and every sense that gave to her for her 
sure possession the beauty of the earth and all that 
therein is. 

To-day the pine opened, besides, a store of memo- 
ries, for she and Lottie had first revelled in its 
beauty as girls together. Her gladness, therefore, 
took even softer and deeper tones. She had in full 
measure the not uncommon consciousness of those 
beloved being often nearer in death than in life, 
and Lottie’s buoyant hopefulness seemed about and 
around her, smiling at her anxieties about Bobbie 
and Clare and assuring her that all was well. For 
a few minutes of intense and quiet thought she held 
communion with her dead, while every beauty that 
the clear day held increased for her. 

The high hedges were hung with the glossy black 
and green of berried alder; the hawthorn stretched 
wide boughs of red, dulled only by the flaunting 
scarlet of the hips; at their feet a myriad shades of 
green vied in the sunlight; a silver-fibred skeleton 


172 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


leaf trembled on supporting blades of grass; near by 
a snail carried his striped spiral shell — frail, deli- 
cate, perfect in colour and design; gnarled roots, 
silvered with lichen, climbed the banks about; the 
woods through which Marion’s path soon lay rested 
in a haze of amethyst and purple against the sky. 

Entering their sun-flecked shade the beech leaves 
drifted red under her feet; a sweet fragrance stole 
from the rich brown soil. The bare, interlaced 
boughs formed an arch of delicate tracery above her 
head. She trod that aisle of fragrance and beauty 
in the happiest dream reverie that youth can know. 

VII 

Marion had in her mind as she walked a quite 
distinct and undoubting picture of what awaited her 
at Greyladies. Almost needless to say, she was 
wrong. Instead of a busily occupied, quietly 
expectant Miss Frances on one side of the hearth 
and a book-engrossed Mr. John on the other, Miss 
Frances sat with her thin hands idle in her lap and a 
flush of excitement on her cheeks as she talked to 
a tall lean man — even taller and much leaner than 
Mr. John — who stood with his back to the fire and 
his fine nervous hands clasped behind him. 

Robert Preston was ten years older than John, 
but up to five years ago his only traffic in marriage 
had consisted of giving away to eligible husbands — 
mainly of his own providing — his numerous pretty 
sisters. Having creditably performed this duty he 
had at last turned what thoughts he could spare 
from his profession, his duties in the House of 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


173 


Commons, and his hundred and one social fads 
and artistic hobbies to the selection of a wife for 
himself. His choice had pleased even the ladies 
who least desired him married: like every other act 
of his life his marriage seemed at once charming, 
graceful, and befitting. No higher compliment 
could be paid the natural ease and charm of the man 
than to add that after his long bachelorhood he was 
able, without the least effort, to impress people not 
only as the perfect husband but as the ideal father. 
He had now three children who seemed born to 
bestow on their parents happiness without a flaw. 

It may be taken for granted after what has been 
said that Robert Preston required other and more 
flattering adjectives than lean and tall to describe 
him adequately. He had grace — an erectness of 
bearing, a fine backward swing of the shoulders and 
poise of the head that too rarely accompany slim 
length of limb. His features were good, and glance 
and smile both winning and humorous; neither 
years nor the faint silvering of his hair had power to 
make him look aught but gallant and young. 

Miss Frances’s eyes naturally held for him 
affection and pride, though their mutual attitudes 
conceded gladly the knowledge that John held first 
place with her. Robert was only staying some 
twenty-four hours; he would be gone on the morrow. 

“It is simply a freak,” he was telling Miss Fran- 
ces. “John, who was formerly a reproach to us all 
for staidness, has suddenly become full of freaks. 
Can you explain it? ” 

“Do I believe it, rather,” said Miss Frances, 


174 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


indulgently smiling. “John has seemed to supply 
the sanest and soberest reasons.” 

“For going to South Africa?” questioned Robert. 
* ‘ N ever ! What are they ? ’ ’ 

“Well,” said Miss Frances, “health, for in- 
stance.” She looked at John, smoking imperturb- 
ably, for support. 

Robert glanced at his brother and laughed gently 
— a very kind but infinitely amused laugh. 

“I dragged him off to Grayson myself,” he said. 
“You know Grayson is a great chum of mine. He 
overhauled you pretty thoroughly, didn’t he, John? ” 

“Too thoroughly,” said John, “But spare your- 
self pains. I’ve told aunt all he said.” 

“As fit as a fiddle,” summarized Robert. 

“But he thought South Africa a good scheme,” 
remarked Aunt Frances. She often amused her 
nephews by giving them back their phrases, with 
the most charming unconsciousness of their quaint- 
ness on her lips. 

“Why shouldn’t he?” said Robert. “John, 
you’re a fraud. I never gloss over my freaks. 
Then this A.B.C. business.” 

John interposed calmly: “If you mean to 
christen that a freak I give in. George was bitten 
with the craze for retirement. He has no hobbies 
and he’s only just over thirty. I had to find him 
something to do. Besides, it pays.” Before 
Robert could reply he went on, ruminatively: “You 
ought to have nothing but gratitude for me. I 
wonder why it’s so much more respectable to derive 
one’s income from shares in a business without any 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


i75 

responsibility than from the whole concern, with all 
the responsibility.” 

“You see,” said Robert, “he’s sliding away from 
the point at issue.” 

“But I wonder,” persisted John. He knew 
Robert would be beguiled. 

“Quite easy,” said his brother. “The share- 
holder invests the fruit of achievement; the shop- 
keeper is still trying to achieve.” 

“Really?” said John. “It doesn’t matter, I 
suppose, if the achievement is not one’s own?” 

“Not in the least,” retorted Robert. “I merely 
state a broad case, mention the underlying principle. 
There is only one measure of conduct, you know,” 
he told Miss Frances. “Briefly, success.” 

John got up lazily. “I’ll leave you to discuss my 
freaks in my absence,” he said. He had a wish to 
meet Marion anywhere but under his brother’s 
keen, kind eyes. As he went out Miss Frances 
said, with a vague perplexity gathering in her 
eyes: 

“But there are business reasons for John’s going, 
are there not?” 

Robert turned to her to reply. From his look it 
was easy to anticipate an adherence to his desig- 
nation of John’s plan as a freak. But at the mo- 
ment of speech he was arrested by Marion’s step 
on the gravel path. John encountered her, in the 
event, almost exactly opposite the window; they 
exchanged greetings and turned to reenter the house 
together. 

Robert asked Miss Frances, quietly: 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


176 

“Who is the lady?” 

“Mary,” said Miss Frances. “Marion Harland. 
Did you not visit John when he was ill? Surely you 
must have met her at Southbay?” 

“I think I did,” said Robert Preston, slowly. 
Listening, he concluded that his brother would not 
reenter yet. He explained to Miss Frances in a 
deliberate, leisurely way: 

“It is my joke about South Africa. I only wish 
John would take business more lightly; it’s his 
failing to overwork systematically. None the less, 
it’s a great relief to me that he’s going. It would 
be difficult for me to go myself.” He ended, 
vaguely: “There’s the constituency, and Peggy, and 
the kids.” 

But Miss Frances was not deceived. 

vm 

As she greeted Marion, receiving the soft pressure 
of the warm young lips on either withered cheek, 
Miss Frances had it in her mind that one glimpse 
of the girl’s bright youth had been enough to silence 
the unquiet, formless questioning which she had 
begun to sense as the undernote and purpose of 
Robert’s visit, and which she had found herself 
powerless to answer or explain. 

Both words and manner had been light, but Miss 
Frances was not deceived. She knew her nephew 
well enough to judge from them that the maturing 
of John’s plans to go to South Africa, possibly for 
good, had caused him surprise amounting to dis- 
quiet; an uneasiness so real that it had driven him to 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


177 

make one of his rare visits to Greyladies to see if 
perchance the riddle could be read there. 

Tentatively, laughingly, he had drawn her on the 
subject; tentatively and laughingly because he was 
too loyal to his brother not to fear giving him away. 
But he had made the mistake of thinking his 
aunt's perceptions as old as her years. The sight 
of Marion had answered his questions. Miss 
Frances’s heart clamoured loud in her ears for the 
reason why. 

Marion was looking her best to-day: exercise and 
fresh air had given a flush to her cheeks and a light 
to her eyes; her fair skin and bright hair rose in 
dazzling contrast from the soft dull black of her 
mourning wear. She looked so happy to-day — 
so young, so fair — Miss Frances felt her heart 
contract in pain at what, not quite for the first 
time, she was given to see. 

All four people talked gaily, and perhaps of the 
four only Marion’s gaiety was real. She re- 
membered Mr. Robert quite well. At Southbay 
he had been of the Prestons who accepted her 
simply. Now, to her joy, he proved to remember 
her father and could tell her that a picture of his, 
purchased years before, had lately won unstinted 
admiration from connoisseurs. They talked at 
some length of her father — the man of varied and 
unequal talents, unstable as water, now poet, now 
artist, now seer. Mr. Robert was very skilful in 
winning confidence, very charming. He exerted his 
skill to-day: it remained for Miss Frances to detect 
that he was attentive almost to preoccupation, too. 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


178 

Into the background of her thoughts she thrust 
the pertinent question: “If not for business and not 
for health why should John leave England?” with 
its hateful answer: “For strong ills, strong reme- 
dies,” and into that dim background thrust a 
thousand resurgent thoughts and memories, too. 
But problems of her own youth rose again, un- 
solved, and mocked her. She tried to turn deaf 
ears to them, or to murmur, as of old: “Hush, 
hush.” 

When tea was over she and Marion were left 
alone awhile. Marion had arranged that the trap 
should be sent for her as usual at half-past six. 
Immediately the two women reverted to intimate 
personal talk, Miss Frances with a gentle: 

“Are things shaping better in regard to Phyllis?” 

Marion shook her head. “I have no hope that 
they will,” she said. “After all, why should they? 
So of course they grow worse.” She smiled awry. 
“I suppose it means that I must leave,” she con- 
ceded, with a sigh. “After all, Bobbie and Clare 
would not be mine for ever.” 

Miss Frances smiled a little. “Why are you 
always so sure your brother-in-law will marry 
again?” she asked. 

“Why shouldn’t he?” asked Marion. “He’s not 
of the material that lives anywhere but in the 
present.” She considered her own speech. “Few 
of us are; and those not the happiest.” 

“Would your sister have married again?” asked 
Miss Frances, softly. She was surprised when 
Marion answered with wide eyes, unpausing: 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


179 

“ Surely. Of course she would.” After a minute 
she asked: “Are you surprised?” 

“I am at your taking it for granted,” said Miss 
Frances. “Youth usually looks upon second mar- 
riage with distaste. One of its fond illusions.” 

“At eighteen, perhaps,” said Marion, amused. 
“I am twenty-four.” 

“Then at twenty-four one admits the possibility 
of second love,” hazarded Miss Frances. 

Marion looked speculative, looked eager. “If 
we’re quite candid with ourselves,” she submitted, 
“we surely believe in more than that. It seems to 
me I’ve been in love, more or less, dozens of times 
already. Of course that’s perhaps because no 
single love has what one might call matured. But 
if it had, does it follow that all one’s capacity would 
be used up in one experience? It might be, of 
course. I don’t know.” 

Miss Frances laughed. “How modern!” she 
said. “And how refreshingly candid!” 

Marion said, unsmiling: “But isn’t it true?” 

“I was wondering,” said the older woman, 
speculatively, “how one would find room for love 
tragedies, on those lines?” 

“Oh,” said Marion, “it makes more room. One 
would feel as one does with recurrent illness — to 
have pain like this and endure it and then live to 
have it again ! No, don’t laugh. I’m not laughing. 
After all, each loss is its own loss, no new gain makes 
it less, and can be suffered in memory over and 
over again. I think our human need of love is 
appalling, when one thinks of its risks. One is not 


180 MARGARET’S MEAD 

asked to go through life desolate because one love 
has passed onward, but yet ” 

“Marion,” said Miss Frances, gently, “have you 
never dreamt of a love for which your heart would 
be a shrine?” 

Instantly she was sorry she had said it. She 
saw in a moment how young the girl was and how 
secret even to herself were kept her heart’s deep 
recesses. On the top the frothy generalities about 
things that bear talking of, and beneath, jealously 
guarded, feared, shunned, denied. . . . 

The sudden whiteness of Marion’s face shocked 
her. She saw the knuckles of the girl’s clenched 
hand gleam white in the glancing flame light. A 
strained voice answered her: 

“Dear Miss Frances, I cling to the hope and 
the prayer that it is impossible to love like 
that.” 

Miss Frances took the measure of Marion’s 
capacity for suffering. 


IX 

It was Marion, anxious to efface the effect of 
her involuntary self-revelation, who blindly and 
blunderingly stumbled upon the topic of divorce. 
Groping in her mind for things with which to over- 
lay her last too-truthful utterance, she knit this 
talk to one with Lottie of a former day. The 
probably contrasting points of view struck her. 
She said to Miss Frances: 

“You would be no believer in divorce?” 

Her friend’s face quivered and changed: she had 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


181 


a wish that she had not embarked upon these 
shoals. She asked, a trifle sadly: 

“Why not?” 

“I imagine,” said Marion, “since you think 
second marriage wrong, you might see no sense to 
it. Lottie maintained that apart from re-marriage 
there was none.” 

“ If I thought second marriage wrong, which I am 
very far from doing, I certainly should see no sense 
to it,” said Miss Frances, unwisely. 

Marion laughed rather drearily. “Then I sup- 
pose I am a fool,” she said. “Lottie told me so, in 
just so many words.” Because her friend’s look 
invited it, she told her the story. 

Miss Frances had her own appreciation of it, but 
she said, kindly: “I will go so far with Lottie as to 
say that I don’t think I could advocate divorce as a 
mere vindication of honour. Don’t quarrel with 
my adjective — one’s standing with the world is a 
trifle. How one stands toward one’s self and God, 
that is all that matters.” 

“God!” said Marion, low. Miss Frances knew 
she had in her mind the modern multitude who 
question His existence. 

“God,” she repeated. “Goodness, if you prefer 
it. Or one’s ideal of conduct. Every man has 
such a God, deny it though he may.” 

The door was opened quietly and Miss Frances 
put out a hand and drew a chair nearer the fire. 
She said: 

“Come and join us, Robert.” 

It was John’s voice that answered: “What is 


182 MARGARET’S MEAD 

the subject?” The two men came over to the 
fire. 

Marion was startled to hear Miss Frances reply, 
quite simply: 

“Religion and divorce. Which do we go on 
with, Marion? I think divorce was the first hare 
started.” 

“Then we’ll take the second,” said Robert. “Do 
we want lights?” 

Lights were vetoed. Mr. John kicked a smoulder- 
ing log into flame and threw on another. Robert 
took up his characteristic attitude by the fire and 
asked Marion if he might smoke. 

“Now, then,” said he, “where were we?” 

“Marion has a weakness for eliminating creeds,” 
said Miss Frances. “I am not clear about Deity, 
but I am sure about creeds.” 

“In the present instance I think I did no more 
than remind myself of the number of people, very 
much concerned with morals and ethics, who do 
not concern themselves with Deity,” Marion an- 
swered, colouring slightly. 

“Have no use for Him, in short?” said Mr. 
Robert, in an ambiguous tone. “Have you none, 
Miss Harland? ” 

Marion took a long look at him as the flames 
danced and flickered; she perceived that the light 
tone accompanied the darkened eyes of a man who 
sees dear convictions threatened. She glanced from 
Robert to Mr. John in some appeal. 

“You must take another turning, Robert,” said 
his brother. “Your ‘in short’ entirely misinter- 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 183 

prets everything Mary said or thinks. Shall we 
substitute another word for ‘God’ or ‘Deity’?” 

“Mary generally prefers ‘good’,” said Miss 
Frances. 

Robert repeated it, pondering. 

“A cold abstraction,” said he. “Do you reject 
the life and warmth and emotion of personality in 
your highest good?” 

Marion said, quickly, “I don’t. And yet I think 
we gain something if we think of God less as an 
individual and more as an all-pervading, all-pitiful 
good; a constant and availing aid to every impulse 
toward righteousness — at once surrounding and 
indwelling. I’m afraid that is a very stumbling 
expression of what I mean.” 

“And then creed?” said Robert. No man 
quicker to take eagerly, avidly, the tone and colour 
of any company worth while. “At least I am right 
in understanding Aunt Frances to say that you like 
to eliminate creeds?” 

“I leave one,” said Marion. Her face took the 
flushed softness of earnest thought. She turned to 
Mr. John. “How do we condense it? Love God, 
love neighbour.” 

For pure pleasure in the measured utterance of 
beautiful words Robert repeated them softly. 
They thrilled through the silent, firelit room. 

“ ‘ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind/ 
This is the first and great commandment. 

“And the second is like unto it: ‘Thou shalt love 
thy neighbour as thyself.’” 


184 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“I sometimes think,” said Marion, after the hush 
of silence that followed the resonant tones of 
Robert’s mellow voice was broken, “I sometimes 
think that a sufficient rule of life is found in the 
second.” 

Mr. John said, quickly: “No; no.” 

“It is service, it is sacrifice, it is self-fulfilment,” 
said Marion, quickly. “To love one’s neighbour 
as one’s self — with sympathy, with complete under- 
standing.” 

John surprised her by emphasizing his negative. 

“To love God, to love good, is highest,” he said, 
firmly, “and is alone sufficient.” 

“But is it not involved in loving one’s neigh- 
bour?” said Robert. “Think. A fife of love and 
sympathy and kindness.” 

John said, smiling: “Think again.” 

After a brief following silence he went on, 
quietly: “I shall express it haltingly, but I look at 
it like this. I grant you the much of loving one’s 
neighbour. But when one has imagined the service 
and love and sympathy, there is something a little 
material in the end. One has helped one’s neigh- 
bour to material, physical, and mental good, let us 
say. Refrained at all times, according to our light, 
from doing him harm. Improved his conditions, 
made life more than tolerable to him, made it 
so far happy. Is that at all comparable to the 
aspiration of the man who sees good as an end 
in itself, who does all that incidentally, because 
it is good; who has formed a conception of 
God — of goodness — which he loves with all his 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 185 

strength and all his mind, and unto which he 
unceasingly aspires? ” 

The words had gathered emphasis from the very 
quietude of their utterance, deliberate, earnest, and 
low. After a pause Robert said: 

“ I see that. Question whether loving one’s 
neighbour is even imperfectly possible without that 
vision of God.” 

x 

Marion did not go back to Margaret’s Mead in 
the trap that evening. When it came for her Mr. 
John sent it away with the message that he would 
drive her home after dinner, some time between 
nine and ten. He came back into the house to say 
that it was a hard frost, the trees covered with 
rime, and forthwith Robert would have them troop 
out to the porch to see the silver fringe of the 
garden trees and the giant cedar spreading wide 
arms to the moonlit sky. So back gladly to the 
warm, light drawing room, where lamps were 
lit at last and the deft maid had brushed the 
white-tiled hearth, piled the fire anew with logs and 
peat, and set the card table near Miss Frances’s 
chair. 

“Is it to be bridge or talk?” Miss Frances asked, 
and smiled with pleasure when the popular voice 
decided against cards. In a little while the small 
circle had split in two, she discussing politics with 
Robert while John had drawn Marion aside over a 
recent book. 

“I have something to ask you,” he said to her 


i86 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


presently. “You know, of course, that a branch 
manager is already appointed at Southbay ? ” 

“Yes,” said Marion. “Why?” 

“I gather from Aunt Frances that you are not 
feeling very settled at Margaret’s Mead — is that 
so?” 

“I have been telling Miss Frances to-day that I 
don’t think I can stay,” said Marion. Again she 
asked: “Why?” 

Mr. John smiled. “ I suppose I mustn’t make use 
of that word in my turn,” he said, “though I should 
like to. However, here is my reason. The A.B.C. 
is spreading out its arms fast and we’re establishing 
another branch at Wyemouth. Would it interest 
you? There’s a quite competent though rather old 
foreman who would do well in the bakehouse; you 
would have no worry there. Of course I don’t ask 
for a decision now, any time before Christmas. 
Aunt Frances favours it because she hopes you 
would spend most of your week-ends with her here. 
It is quite near enough for that.” He hesitated a 
moment, then said, firmly: 

“You see she will be rather lonely when I am 
gone. 

Marion echoed: “Gone?” 

He smiled. “Greyladies has almost completed 
my cure. I’ve spent most of the week in London 
for some time now. And certainly work has its 
charms for me. I couldn’t be an idler here for 
ever.” 

“Of course not,” said Marion. Her heart was 
throbbing painfully. “But do you mean that you 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 187 

are returning to London for good? That you 
won’t live at Greyladies any more?” 

He could not but notice how entirely her thoughts 
were diverted from her own plans to his. His voice 
and look softened. 

“I should mean that,” he said, “if I did not 
mean more. Greyladies was never meant to be 
more than a rest cure — it is too far from London for 
a permanent home. But as a matter of fact, I 
am leaving England. Partly for business reasons 
and partly for health. I am going to South 
Africa.” 


XI 

Marion could not believe — could not comprehend 
or contend with — her own instant rush of emotion. 
Nothing she had consciously thought about Mr. 
John, nothing she had even for a moment realized 
him to mean to her, could credibly account for 
the fact that at his words the soft-lit room turned 
to a black void before her eyes. She did not know 
that Miss Frances and Mr. Robert still talked, 
their voices mingling in a low monotone, that she 
herself continued her restless play with a paper 
knife she was handling — for appreciable moments 
of time she knew nothing. Then she saw that she 
was bending the knife and laid it absently down as 
Mr. John added: 

“ I’m not sailing in the next boat, you know. As 
a matter of fact, I hope to stay here until Dorothea 
returns to school after the Christmas holiday. She 
will not come out to me for another year or two. I 


1 88 MARGARET'S MEAD 

have arranged to go about the second week in 
February." 

Marion caught her breath, repeating his words 
mechanically, the wildest resentment, and pain, 
and hatred surging in her breast. She hated him 
at that moment fiercely for his power so carelessly 
and callously to hurt her. What did it matter that 
it was done unconsciously? She suffered torments ! 
She heard herself saying, hardily and casually, but 
as from a distance: 

“ Another year or two! You are going, then, for 
good?" 

He answered, in an odd voice: 

“I hope . . . for good." 

The tone made Marion look up quickly, surprised, 
and the first wave of pure selfishness in her emotion 
broke. Passionately resentful, miserably wounded, 
she had contrasted, subconsciously, what she first 
found of calm, kindly friendliness in his voice with 
the wild despair of her heart. Then it sprang that 
new note; she sped her glance to his face, and 
momentarily, at least, her pain was eased. For 
against his will and knowledge John Preston's face 
by no means looked as though he had spoken 
calmly. It was, to Marion's intense surprise, gray 
and shocked. 

She looked away, striving with all her might to 
rally her senses, to receive his news as it was meet 
she should receive it. She remarked, with a would- 
be natural interest: 

“Let me see, in Africa you have very cold nights 
after very hot days, don’t you?" 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 189 

“I believe so,” said John Preston. He closed 
the book they had been discussing, reflecting, with 
his twisted smile, that in realistic fiction people 
express emotion by calling out, “My God I” 

XII 

In the short time before dinner spent in Miss 
Frances’s cosy dressing room Marion reverted to 
their former talk. She had to speak of something 
to keep her thoughts from centring on one subject 
prolific of pain. 

“I don’t think I am inconsistent,” Miss Frances 
replied. “You quote against me my mention of a 
love for which one’s heart would be a shrine. That 
certainly does seem to commit me to a difficulty in 
understanding second marriages. I admit it. But 
from another point of view than yours.” 

“ Tell me,” said Marion. She knit her brows, less 
in perplexity than from difficulty in concentrating 
for two minutes together on any subject but 
one. 

“The second marriages I cannot understand,” 
said Miss Frances, talking in despite of her knowl- 
edge that her words were probably wasted on air, 
“are those you accept casually. I mean those 
following an obviously and confessedly happy first 
marriage. That divorced people should marry 
again seems to me the most natural thing in the 
world.” 

Marion was quite arrested. She said eagerly: 
“Why?” 

“Why? Because if I had built a shrine to an 


I 9° 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


idol, and found it false,” said Miss Frances, whimsi- 
cally, “I should almost certainly want to find a 
true one. The fact of building a shrine at all 
demonstrates a taste for idols, you see. To trans- 
late, the fact of loving one man as a husband proves 
some need and desire for one. If he proves false, 
or impossible, or utterly unworthy, surely it is 
natural to wish to retrieve that false step, natural 
to be prone to love again? The people who marry 
unhappily are altogether desolate, cheated, and de- 
prived; the thing they asked of life denied them; 
their love thrown back, unwanted, undesired. No 
such claim can be made by your partner to a happy 
union, whose love is divided from him only by 
death.” 

“Only by death,” repeated Marion, strangely. 

“Do you believe in the immortality of the 
spirit?” 

For one moment Marion hesitated. Then ex- 
perience flooded her mind with memories. She 
answered, quickly; “Oh, I do. I do.” 

“Then what is death to love but a communion 
closer, sweeter? I grant you anguish and loss at 
first, the miss of every human attribute we loved 
and knew. . . . But perhaps you see why 

second marriage following death is a little in- 
comprehensible to me. I realize, of course, the 
truth contained in what you said just now, that 
each loss is its own loss; a second wife or husband 
need in no sense replace the first; each needed, each 
beloved. But it is certain that a divorced man’s 
second marriage needs no excuses.” 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


191 

Marion quoted: “Whom God hath joined.” 

“Ah,” said her friend, “but who shall say whom 
God has joined? Don’t let us confuse a ceremony 
and a priest with God.” 

Marion said, deliberating: “But you don’t be- 
lieve in indiscriminate divorce?” 

“My dear child!” protested Miss Frances. “I 
was only defending the right of a divorced person 
to marry again. Of course I believe in wise, sane 
safeguards of the sanctity of marriage; I believe in 
regarding it as a responsibility and obligation only 
for the gravest reasons to be set aside. But the 
abuses of the present system degrade marriage. I 
see neither sanctity nor decency in binding a pure- 
minded woman to an adulterous man, or either sex 
to a partner irredeemably immoral, drunken, or 
insane.” 

After a pause she added: 

“And what is horrible in my sight I think can be 
no less so in the sight of God. Nor would I con- 
demn the partners to such unions to an unnatural 
celibacy. The punishment is too heavy for the 
crime.” 

Marion remarked, on a slightly ironical note: 

“Unnatural celibacy must be the lot of a good 
many women, anyway.” 

“I know,” said Miss Frances, and smiled, too. 
‘ ‘ That does not make it less unnatural. But it may 
be said for the unmarried of either sex that as a 
rule they haven’t found a partner; they’re not 
compulsorily kept apart.” 

“And I suppose,” - said Marion, with careful 


IQ2 


MARGARET'S MEAD 


casualness, “you regard Mr. John, for instance, as 
morally free?" 

Miss Frances admired the tone. She reflected 
that avoidance of the pertinent conclusion must 
have seemed marked. She answered: 

“No. I believe in 1 rendering unto Caesar.’ I 
believe in obeying the law. Were he lawfully free 
he would be morally so. But he is not. No act is 
right or wrong in itself; attendant circumstances 
make it so. Am I clear, Marion?" 

She was rejoiced that the reply halted. Marion 
considered; the older woman pictured her calling 
up parallel cases. At last: 

“Perfectly. And perfectly right," said Marion. 
“But—" 

“What becomes of my text and sermon? you are 
wondering," added Miss Frances. “I believe in 
getting bad laws altered." 

“What can one do?" asked Marion. 

“For one thing, take pains to think clearly, and 
particularly consider other people’s problems more 
than one’s own. Robert may be keen in reform 
of the divorce laws, but John hardly can. How 
would he know that the personal issue was not 
perverting his judgment?" 

They were standing ready to go down. Marion 
remarked, musingly: 

“I wonder if that is why divorce is mostly dis- 
cussed by the unmarried? " 

Miss Frances laughed. “My dear," she said, 
“I might suspect a hit at me. You are too young 
to be classed yet." 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


i93 


Marion turned to her, impulsively, half amused, 
half apologetic. Miss Frances took her arm to go 
downstairs. 

“But I am going to prove you wrong,” she said. 
“I don’t follow my own counsel of perfection. With 
me it was once a very personal problem. You see 
I have been married nearly fifty years.” 

Before Marion had collected herself to reply she 
added, quickly: 

“There’s the bell. And in any event, I had no 
present intention of telling you the story.” 

They paused on the landing of the first short 
flight of stairs. 

“I’m growing a garrulous old lady,” finished Miss 
Frances. “Now you know why Robert chose the 
second hare.” 

XIII 

Marion referred to the South African project at 
dinner and was amazed to find that Miss Frances 
had heard nothing of it until that morning, or such 
casual and fragmentary mention as to make no 
impression on her. Mr. Robert had known, of 
course, for some time, and contrived to keep the 
conversation, which tended to centre round Africa, 
amusing and interesting from the fruits of his own 
previous experiences there. 

As undercurrent to the apparently quiet, pleasant 
talk Marion found her sense of desolate trouble and 
pain returning, and recognized with a sort of dumb 
dismay that in such guise it might return to stay. 
In its first acute form of sense-destroying misery 


194 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


she had told herself desperately that it could not 
last, because it could not be borne, and the assur- 
ance brought its own wretched consolation. But a 
numb, desolate ache such as now supervened could 
be carried concealed, she feared, for ever. One 
could live on top of it — smile, and talk, and live! 

John Preston watched her anxiously but covertly 
as the time stole by, considering his plans sealed 
and ratified by every trifling thing observed of 
Marion, as well as by his own emotions. Not for a 
moment could he forget the wild exultation, swiftly 
caught and strangled by iron hands of self-control 
and self-condemnation, that had leapt into being 
within him when at his first carefully casual words 
her face had blanched white. He had not been 
prepared for it. He had not thought — if he had 
hoped — that she would so much care, and for his 
own strengthening he had thought it well that she 
should expect him to pass out of her fife. Now the 
remembered agony of her young face whipped him 
with whips that flayed and healed; an exquisite 
torture, keeping the nerves alive and quivering. 

For all that he must experiment with his own 
sensations, test his power of self-control, essay to 
prove he had not been deluded in the nature of what 
he had observed. So Marion found herself in- 
volved in discussion of the Wyemouth proposal, 
envisaging the average tea-shop — the pretentious 
decorations, the banal music above the clatter of 
crockery and the buzz of voices; the changing vista 
of crumby plates and sloppy saucers; the sameness 
and nameless vulgarity of mankind feeding in the 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


i95 


mass. She saw herself observant of the needs, the 
tastes, the comments of these changing crowds; 
viewing waitresses and assistants in relation to 
them; reconciling the hundred pettinesses of a 
vain, overtired, and underpaid staff; calculating 
to-morrow from to-day. 

Would she be able to bring individuality into such 
a scheme? Could taste and strong resolve impart 
distinction to what depended for its existence on the 
support of crowds? John Preston maintained that 
it could and would, and that the century-old prem- 
ises at Wyemouth peculiarly lent themselves to a 
quiet note of old and mellow dignity, fragrant of 
the romance of a bygone age. It had a garden 
sloping to a river for summer teas; workmen already 
overran the house transforming it under the eye of 
the great “ period” decorator, Mainwaring himself. 
Mr. John wished her to meet him and confer upon 
details on the spot. 

This was part of their after-dinner talk, in which 
Miss Frances joined while Mr. Robert resumed 
attention to his voluminous correspondence. And 
Marion, with the mingling of discernment and 
candour that Miss Frances loved in her, thanked her 
sweetly for the opportunity given to her of at least 
presenting Walter with a definite alternative. In 
her heart she knew she hated business, just as she 
loved the ordered usefulness of her present life. 
She wished aloud that she had been born in days of 
less communal living. 

“ Every home an exaggerated counterpart of the 
more isolated farms?” said Mr. John. “The lot 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


196 

has its advantages. Come with me to Africa. I’ll 
forego accountancy and mines and we’ll experiment 
together.” 

The teasing tone almost banished Miss Frances’s 
fears. She thought: “He could not venture safely 
on such a jest!” In the next moment she saw that 
indeed he did not venture safely. A burning 
question flashed into his eyes, which fortunately 
Marion’s were not raised to meet. 

John also, it seemed, made the mistake of 
imagining his aunt’s perceptions as old as her years. 

XIV 

When Marion had gone and the household had 
separated for the night Miss Frances sat long over 
her fire anxiously pondering the wisdom of what 
she had said and left unsaid. She knew Marion 
well and that the innate purity and delicacy of the 
girl would interpret her generously and on right 
lines. But had she succeeded in her object? Had 
interference at all been necessary or wise? 

What she had wished — what she still wished, 
prayerfully — was that Marion should not be con- 
fronted by a problem unawares: that it should not 
come to her — unconsidered, undreamt of — in some 
moment of passion and pain. But had she suf- 
ficiently emphasized that first duty of submission 
to the law? Had she made plain the distinction 
she wished to draw between the mere death of the 
physical body and the actual death in life of the 
soul? 

Miss Frances hardly paused upon her brief men- 


THE STUFF OF LIFE 


197 

tion of her own story, though she knew it was a 
tale that must now be told. She had wished to 
account for her interest, in case Marion’s thoughts 
were free enough to lead her to speculate thereon; 
also she had wished to divert the girl’s thoughts 
from one sole problem. It had been an effort and a 
sacrifice. Was it thrown away? 

Presently, against her will, she began to frame the 
telling of that old tale so that it might best illustrate 
the truth she wished to press while leaving herself 
and Marion little hurt. 

“The English law does not grant divorce to a 
woman for mere adultery; neither can one plead 
desertion when one pays a man to keep away.” 

She thought of those months in India; of her first 
blind idealization; of her later refusal to bear a dis- 
honoured name. And so the passing of years and 
the blurring of her story; by most people long 
forgotten. She thought of the love of her maturer 
years and its starved agony. She murmured to 
herself, on a painful smile: “Hush, hush.” 

All the arguments against recent suggested re- 
forms of the marriage law passed through her mind 
in procession. She viewed them — now in her old 
age — with a white flame of passionate anger. The 
dishonest pretence that under the desertion clause 
a man might marry again and again by the simple 
process of marrying a wife one day and deserting 
her the next! The fatuity of the supposition that 
any sane man would spend long years of his life in 
fulfilling the stipulated periods of desertion — that 
an immoral man would worry overmuch about re- 


MARGARET'S MEAD 


198 

peating marriage at all ! Then the hypocrisy of ac- 
cepting separation and refusing divorce, as though 
separation was not a putting asunder. The limit- 
ing of Christ’s “except for fornication” to the 
man, because in His day the question was not 
raised as to the woman. The unfair double standard 
with its manifest results and all the old, silly, 
smothering, ostrich-like policy of believing that 
not to see is to make invisible. 

Other aspects of the problem — the dire results 
to the race of keeping women bound in wedlock to 
undesirable men; the failure of realism when depict- 
ing vice ever to suggest its horrible physical results, 
as though evil brought no consequences; the in- 
sincerity toward morals, the weak and pitiful treat- 
ment that corrodes the national life — these pre- 
sented themselves to her in turn and filled her with 
longing to be young again, that she might take her 
part in the work to be done in a quickly coming 
time. 


Good-Bye 


i 

On a clear cold morning in January Marion spent 
long hours in the attic where apples were stored. It 
was bitingly cold there, as she found in spite of 
haste and energy, for a north wind blew through 
the unceiled roof and in at the ill-fitting leaded 
lattices, and she varied her task of looking over the 
fruit for those that showed signs of rotting by sun- 
dry runs to the warm kitchen to thaw over the fire. 
Kate was baking and produced a hot cake and warm 
milk on one of her calls, saying, persuasively: 

“It’s far too cold for you up there, Miss. Let 
them bide till to-morrow and I’ll get James to come 
up with me and finish them in no time.” 

“It is rather cold,” admitted Marion. “They 
have to be handled gently or they’ll bruise. There 
are quite a heap of throw-outs, but I’ll finish them 
now I’ve begun.” 

“Are you dressed warm enough, Miss?” asked 
Kate. She cast a contemptuous look at Marion’s 
thin silk blouse. 

“I’m going to put my coat on,” said Marion. 
“Clare helped for a little while, sweet mite. Her 
little hands got quite blue and I sent her down.” 

She seemed in high spirits and it was odd to see 


199 


200 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


how anxious were Kate’s eyes as she followed her 
into the hall and helped her into her thick coat. 

“How long are you likely to be, Miss?” 

“Less than an hour,” said Marion. “If Mr. 
Walter comes in ask him to send up for the rotten 
ones. There are too many for me to bring down.” 

She ran up the back stairs. Kate, looking out, 
saw Walter about to enter the yard next the pad- 
dock. She put down her spoon and ran out to him. 

“Miss Marion says would you send up for the 
apples for the pigs?” she said. “ She be up there 
sorting them in this north wind.” 

Walter followed her in without a word. He 
picked up a basket and turned to the back stairs. 
At the foot he paused to ask: 

“How long has she been up there?” 

“Hours on end,” said Kate. “What we want 
to store so many apples for is beyond me. And 
she’ve asked for someone to look them over every 
day this fortnight past. I’ll warrant she might 
have asked for a fortnight more ” 

Walter stopped for no more of Kate’s harangue. 
“That woman’s tongue wants cutting,” he muttered 
as he went upstairs. He paused in the doorway 
of the attic to watch Marion unobserved. 

She was absorbed in her task and she sang as she 
worked. But there was no need of the sharpness of 
Walter’s anxious glance to perceive that she looked 
thin and worn. Cheeks and temples were hollowed 
and the face had lost its look of soft, round youth. 
The resemblance to Lottie had deepened, making it 
easy to trace the source of Walter’s fear. 


GOOD-BYE 201 

He shuffled his feet on the landing before saying 
aloud: 

“ Here’s the basket. It’s too cold for you up 
here.” 

Marion pointed to a heap on the floor. “ There 
they are,” she remarked, absently. When Walter 
had begun to fill his basket she added: 

“ I want to tell you that I’m sorry about Phyllis.” 

Walter straightened himself from his stooping 
and stared at her as he asked, deliberately: 

“Sorry she’s going?” 

“No,” said Marion, “I did not mean that.” 

Before she had time to say what she did mean 
Walter went on in his remorselessly logical way: 

“Will asked her to do something or other. She 
was rude to him. He gave her a month’s notice. 
What that has to do with me for the life of me I 
can’t see.” 

“I thought — Will thought, too, I expect — that 
you were very friendly with Phyllis.” 

“So with brotherly kindness he discharged her,” 
sneered Walter. “Am I to take your sorrow as 
divine compassion for Will’s brutality?” 

Marion turned impatiently away. She had felt 
some concern that Walter’s interest in Phyllis 
should seem to be flouted. By a change made at 
the New Year in the household affairs of Margaret’s 
Mead Phyllis now came directly under Will’s 
employ. She would have dismissed the subject, 
which had ceased to interest her, but Walter was 
determined to make his case clear. 

“It puzzles me why you and Will should imagine 


202 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


you have landed me in a predicament,” he said, in 
a voice of contempt for their discernment. “ As- 
suming I had a serious interest in Phyllis I have 
only to assert it, and I fancy Will and you would be 
the subjects for compassion. Assuming I have not, 
you surely do me a kindness in ridding me of her.” 
After a hard look at Marion’s face of distaste he 
ended: “You can hardly be blind to the fact that 
she’s a nuisance to me.” 

Marion answered, indifferently: “I only re- 
member you were quite familiar with her some few 
weeks back.” She resumed her sorting of the 
apples. 

Walter flushed swarthily as he, too, set about his 
task. He thoroughly believed her. Marion’s in- 
difference was, indeed, the key to the new situation 
in regard to Phyllis. Miss Frances’s intervention 
with the Wyemouth plan had indeed done much, 
as she had foreseen it would. Walter feared to 
drive Marion to extremities and instantly saw 
Phyllis as a weapon turned against him. But he 
would have made some play in that direction if 
Marion’s complete indifference had not supervened. 
Some subtle change had come over the girl; he 
found that no look or word of his had power now to 
move her. She received all and anything with a 
cheerful, quiet, abstracted calm that neither hurt 
nor healed. She discussed the Wyemouth scheme 
frankly, even luring him to weigh its pros and cons 
with her, and finally just at Christmas decided 
against it. But Walter felt no longer sure of her. 
At any moment, on some change of view, she might 


GOOD-BYE 


203 


go. He recognized that for the present his own 
case was hopeless. Restraining his impatience, he 
waited. 

n 

Marion soon forgot that Walter was in the room. 
A little while later, when she found that he was sort- 
ing apples near her, she did remark that kneeling 
on the floor in the cold made one stiff, but she with- 
drew almost immediately into her perfectly un- 
conscious preoccupation. It was not mere torpid 
abstraction but a vivid, exciting preoccupation 
that kept her movements swift, her low song con- 
stant, her cheeks flushed. 

And indeed she had been for two months vividly 
and intensely living; most of the time with her 
senses on the alert to guard, conceal, and defend 
her thoughts. Miss Frances’s wish to forewarn 
her had signally succeeded, though she knew it not. 
Marion had tossed her problem back and forth, felt 
it, probed it, imagined she knew it inside and out. 

But indeed she did not; for there were times when 
she imagined that John Preston was impatient of 
her; did not even like her. There were times when 
she believed profoundly that if he came to love her 
the evil of final separation would be spared her as 
an ill too great. There were times — less frequent — * 
when she dreamed of a declaration of love from him 
which would give them as friends to each other for 
all time. 

Always when she pictured this last development 
she saw John Preston’s sojourn in South Africa 


204 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


cancelled, or shortened to a year merely; always, 
thereafter, she met him constantly — at Greyladies, 
or at the branch of the A.B.C. where she happened 
to be. Her refusal of the Wyemouth management 
was a mere symptom of the first blow given to this 
dream. 

She had been discussing with him some detail in 
regard to the books and had remarked, casually and 
thoughtlessly: 

“After all, if the point arises when you are gone 
you could write me about it.” 

Instantly the kindness, the intimacy went out of 
John Preston’s face as the brightness from a window 
when the light within is extinguished. He said, 
smiling but aloof : 

“We won’t trust to that. I am a very bad 
correspondent.” 

Marion was taken off her guard. Not for a mo- 
ment had she doubted that they would write to 
each other. She said like a child, impulsively: 

“But you will write to me?” 

He replied, quite kindly: “Of all my relations I 
only write to Aunt Frances.” 

Marion knew, as he knew she must, that that was 
not true. She became suddenly silent. Then she 
remembered what she must do, and took up the ball 
of conversation again and tossed it merrily. Being 
human, John Preston compassionated that brave 
gaiety, and became heart-breakingly kind. 

Then, too, Marion had counted confidently on 
regular weekly meetings at Greyladies during 
the remainder of his stay in England. But more 


GOOD-BYE 


205 


often than not she reached Greyladies to find him 
away, or on Sundays was apprised by Miss Fran- 
ces’s solitude in church of his absence. And more 
than once after such disappointment he called on 
her unexpectedly in the middle of the week with a 
book or message. Marion’s expectation was kept 
constantly alive : not a day passed but she expected 
him: not a day but she checked off as one the less 
of the rapidly decreasing days on which she could 
even hope to meet him. 

The visit to the Wyemouth branch she had pic- 
tured taken in his company and looked forward 
to as a day of pure pleasure; but in the event George 
Preston came over to fetch her with Rosa. This 
was planned, it appeared, as a surprise and treat 
for her! Marion spent the day in breathless gaiety, 
and Wyemouth was a hateful place to her there- 
after; during every moment spent there she whipped 
herself with whips of self-scorn and angry, con- 
temptuous humiliation. 

Yet it was at Wyemouth she first took to herself 
the cold comfort of blaming the iniquity of the law 
for what she suffered and immediately saw her 
lot impersonally, and smarted with indignation 
as at a public wrong. For had John Preston been 
free she knew she would have scorned to He smart- 
ing under his treatment; would indeed have scorned 
its varying tones and hues and him for being 
capable of it. As it was she for ever traced it to its 
source, read into it varying meanings, torturing her- 
self with the bare possibifity of his pain and feeding 
her love with compassion. 


206 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


Of course she had moments of healthy im- 
patience when she could say and feel, raging at her- 
self : “Oh, don’t be such a fool. It is all hateful and 
ugly together. What matter if he cares or not? 
Is it likely he would be such an idiot as to care? 
And if he does he must just get over it and dismiss 
it, and so must you. Trust him to do that and do 
it yourself.” Then she would throw herself heart 
and soul into work or play, frolicking with the 
kiddies or enthusiastically weeding out the atrocities 
in the oak room, and in less than an hour would be 
back at the old game again, conscious of renewed 
defeat. 

So in fluctuations of feeling, in struggle, in vain 
speculation, and above all in a fever of desire to 
keep that inward conflict hidden or disguised, the 
weeks passed. On the whole, she did well. If the 
intensity of her inner life preyed on her health, as 
it must and did, even Walter’s watchfulness failed 
to diagnose the cause. He saw her often gay, 
always self-sufficient, flushed of cheek, bright of 
eye. He remembered that so had been Lottie, 
and wasted as Marion wasted, denying as Marion 
denied that she was ill. Walter grew grim, but no 
longer pressed attentions on her nor sought in any 
way to harass or fret. 


in 

The fact that kept Marion peculiarly preoccupied 
to-day was that she expected to say a final farewell 
to John Preston when she left Grey ladies in the 
evening. It appeared, incredibly yet so naturally, 


GOOD-BYE 


207 


that nothing was to happen. He left for London 
the next day and it was not expected that in the 
press of business before sailing he would find time 
to visit Grey ladies again. 

He sailed in a fortnight’s time, Marion knew al- 
most to an hour when he would leave English 
shores. All the morning she had been feverishly 
contemplating the morrow, trying to imagine how 
it would feel to know she would see him no more. 

Walter, stolidly finishing the last heap of apples, 
and kneeling close by her side to do it, remarked at 
last: 

“Do you know that there is a note for you down- 
stairs, brought over from Greyladies? ” 

Marion dropped a sound apple. She bit her lip 
as she put it on one side to take down with her. She 
said: 

“No, how should I? It ought to have been 
brought up to me.” 

“Sorry, it’s my fault,” said Walter. “I took it 
in and meant to tell Kate. But I expect it’s to tell 
you that Preston’s gone.” 

“Gone?” repeated Marion, blankly. She left 
the apples and stood up. “Oh, no, that’s a mistake. 
He’s going, but not gone. He goes by the 10:10 
to-morrow.” 

“He went by the 10:10 to-day,” said Walter. 
“ Warner was at the station with the wagons for coal 
and saw him get into the London express. He 
tipped him half-a-crown, moreover; for bringing 
that last book to you, I guess.” 

Marion said: “Then he is doubtless coming 


208 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


back.” With an effort she constrained herself to 
finish her task; her instinct was to get away from 
Walter and fly to the note. Was it from Mr. John 
or Miss Frances? She would not ask. She told 
herself it did not matter; told herself that it was 
certain now that he would be coming back. In- 
deed, she believed this. It was incredible that he 
would leave without even saying good-bye. 

When she went downstairs she constrained herself 
further to take off her coat and wash her hands be- 
fore looking at the note lying on the hall table. 
One glance had shown her that it was from Miss 
Frances, which made her assure herself again that 
he was coming back. But she read: 

My dear Mary, 

John is called to London to-day instead of to-morrow. 
He asks me to say how very sorry he is not to see you 
again. He will write to us from London. 

I feel very old and lonely, dear. Come and cheer 
me up. 

Marion said to herself, dropping the note: “I 
can’t go. Oh, I can’t go.” 

Walter came in. He asked, with lifted brow: 

“Gone, hasn’t he?” 

“Oh, yes,” said Marion. “I must hurry off after 
dinner. Miss Frances will be feeling very dull to- 
day.” 

She picked up the note and dropped it with the 
envelope into the fire. The sight of it, at least, 
should not again hurt her. The words danced 
before her in letters of fire. 


GOOD-BYE 


209 


“What is for dinner? ” asked Walter. 

She told him and related why she had had the 
fowl killed. It was a young pullet of a stolen brood 
and had taken to eating its eggs. All the time she 
was reading: “He will write to us from London.” 
Her heart cried, “Why not say truthfully ‘to me? 
I was not in his thoughts.” 

Kate came in to lay the cloth for dinner. 

IV 

Coming back from Greyladies that evening 
Marion thought she knew quite definitely what her 
life would be. A thing made up of beginnings and 
loose ends; of vain imaginings and barren loves. 

In some odd way she felt sunk in humiliation and 
self-contempt. To have squandered so much 
thought, so much emotion, so much downright 
suffering on an empty dream, a mere figment of her 
imagination ! She assumed she would always be like 
that: following false fights, mistaking substances for 
shadows and shadows for substance; going through 
fife thwarted, hungry, unsatisfied, and undesired. 

This medley of passionate despair arose largely 
from what she had learnt of the very definite nature 
of John Preston’s leave taking. As such Miss 
Frances had wisely and firmly represented it, hop- 
ing indeed that John would be as good as his word. 
She loved him — and loved Marion — too well to 
wish to see him again. She thought it best so and 
commended the cruel kindness of his farewell, 
though she realized it as almost inhumanly wise. 
Young people of her day, she thought, were less 


210 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


sane and self-cont rolled. The men and women of 
this generation were strangers to her: surely their 
blood ran slow and pallid in their veins ! 

Marion, when she came, filled Miss Frances’s 
chafed spirit with impatience. She came neat, 
quiet, smiling, wearing shoes with heels absurdly 
high for country walking. They were really quite 
moderate heels but Miss Frances was in a mood to 
find things wrong. A little dowdiness or dishevel- 
ment in Marion would to-day have suited her 
better. Instead, her bright hair crowned the girl’s 
head with grace, her flush was as becoming and her 
smile as sweet as when John held the door for her to 
enter. As she took Miss Frances’s hands and 
kissed her cheek she said, cheerily: 

“It’s only one day less.” 

“I know,” said Miss Frances. “But I had no 
notion how much I should miss him; how used I 
had grown to keeping his room for him.” 

Marion sat down on the fender stool. She said : 

“I wish my men were going. I could do with 
Margaret’s Mead to myself for awhile.” 

Miss Frances saw that Marion had chosen her 
part; saw it as inevitable that to conceal deep feeling 
she would show none. She answered, with her eyes 
moist: 

“Thank goodness old age wins one the privilege 
of tears. I haven’t got to keep a curb on my 
affections.” 

Marion stroked her hands absently. She recog- 
nized that her friend’s heart was sore. 

“I really am very sorry, dear Miss Frances,” 


GOOD-BYE 


2 1 1 


she said. “But I’m not going to let you brood 
over it if I can help it. Tell me how he went? In 
good spirits I expect? When one has the wander- 
lust one must be glad to go.” 

“So we are to look upon it as a pleasure trip,” 
observed Miss Frances, drily. Marion was faintly 
surprised at her unreasonable mood. She felt glad 
that she had to leave early; she was walking back 
and wished not to be too long after dusk. She 
thought to herself, oddly: 

“Does she expect me to sit submerged in tears 
because her precious man’s gone away? What 
tears did he shed at going? ” 

And she humoured Miss Frances with a sweet but 
faintly condescending kindness, as one unbends to 
the hopeless, helpless sorrow of a child. 

v 

By the time ten days had passed of the fourteen 
that remained for John Preston to stay in England, 
Marion passionately wished the time to go quickly. 
She found that until he had actually sailed the 
episode was not really closed for her: she could not 
and did not realize her outlook as fixed. 

“He might find he had time,” she would think — 
“he might have left early to make time — for a final 
farewell.” He had not been gone three days before 
she hourly expected his return. But the day before 
his departure arrived and only one letter had been 
received by Miss Frances, containing a brief mes- 
sage for Marion of enquiry and farewell. 

Marion got up that morning feeling that hope 


212 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


was indeed gone. He would not come now: he 
would be busy with preparations for the morrow. 
Breakfast was a dreary meal and the morning 
dragged hopelessly. So hopelessly that at twelve 
o’clock she felt she could endure the life indoors no 
longer and started for a walk round the farm. 

As she passed the yard Warner was taking his 
horses into stable. He hailed her, touching the 
brim of his old worn hat. 

“I thought ee would like to know, Missie,” he 
bawled, “that Mr. John be back at Greyladies for 
the day. I passed un in his motor driving from 
Minterne. He stopped I and said he wer’n’t off to 
Africa till to-morrow. He leaves early in the morn.” 

The aspect of the world changed for Marion. 
She was glad she had to open and shut a gate and 
draw nearer before she could make heard, her reply. 

“It couldn’t have been his motor, Warner. He 
has sold it. Perhaps it was a hired one from Min- 
terne.” 

“Like enough, but he was driving hisself. No 
one with un. He looks as though a vyage’d do un 
good. Thought ee’d like to know, Miss. I heerd 
he wer’nt expected like at whoam.” 

“Thanks, Warner,” said Marion. She felt this 
day was hers. She changed her mind about a walk 
and hurried back indoors. At any moment he 
might call. 


vi 

By three o’clock Marion was alternating fever- 
ishly between two opinions; one that he would walk 


GOOD-BYE 


213 


over to say good-bye, the other that Miss Frances 
would send a maid or one of the men to ask her to 
come to tea. 

Or, perhaps, Mr. Preston himself would fetch her 
and she would hurry into her things and walk back 
with him in the thin sunshine through the leafless 
woods. Or would he come and she offer him tea 
with her — an early cup — in the oak room that she 
had slowly transformed to her liking? Would he 
approve it wholly now; be conscious of it as a pure 
pleasure, a thing of beauty unalloyed, or was there 
still something she had left undone? There must 
be a good fire in there — a log fire. 

“Kate,” she said aloud, wandering into the 
kitchen, “have you lit the oak-room fire yet?” 

“Yes, Miss.” 

“Are there plenty of logs?” 

“Yes, Miss. Logs and peat and coal.” 

“What have we for tea to-day? Could you make 
me a few of your small Scotch scones?” 

“You make them best, Miss.” 

“Yes, I know. But I shouldn’t to-day. I 
mean — I’ve so much mending. Make some, Kate. 
Early, please. I think perhaps I should like an 
early tea.” 

Kate stared at her. She said, slowly: 

“By yourself, Miss? Neither Mr. Napier nor 
Mr. Will are likely to be in before half-past four.” 

Marion did not answer. She had no sane answer 
ready. But she went restlessly to the linen chest 
and put uppermost the daintiest tea-cloth she could 
find in case she should need to tell Kate to use it. 


214 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


By half -past three she had worn expectancy thin, 
and fear, the chillest fear, assailed her. If he had 
not come by four, Will and Walter would be in for 
tea. She would not dare leave for Greyladies then; 
she could not face Walter’s jeer. Then, too, by the 
time tea was over it would be five o’clock and 
toward dark. How could she pretend to call 
casually at a house two miles away at half-past five 
of a February day? And she could not, for very 
shame, go other than casually: she could not pro- 
claim herself come to say good-bye if he had not 
thought to say good-bye to her. Again, to go 
after dark would oblige him to bring her back. She 
looked at the clock. It was too late already. If 
she went now she could not get back by half-past 
four. But would that matter? No. What more 
natural than that she should walk over to Grey- 
ladies this lovely mild winter afternoon. 

She went out to Kate again, running out in seem- 
ing light-heartedness. And, indeed, resolve did 
something to disperse her gloom, replacing dreadful 
suspense with the excitement of action and breath- 
less expectation. She said : 

“I’ve changed my mind. I can’t lose all this 
lovely day. Never mind about getting tea early 
and don’t keep it about for me. I’m going for a 
long tramp. Phyllis will look after the children 
and pour out the tea.” 

Kate said, quickly: “I could have a cup ready 
for you, Miss, by the time you’ve got on your 
things.” 

Marion changed her first instinct of refusal to a 


GOOD-BYE 


215 

bright: “ Thank you, Kate, then I’ll have it out 
here,” and flew upstairs to get ready. 

When she came down a few minutes later the 
afternoon peace of the kitchen had vanished. 
Phyllis had brought the children in that way be- 
cause Clare had got her boots so muddy. Bobbie 
was chattering, Clare clamouring to “go with 
Auntie May.” Marion told her: 

“lam going too far, darling,” and Bobbie began 
with his absurd, wistful, “Take me.” 

She kissed and pacified them both, gave instruc- 
tions to Phyllis, swallowed her cup of tea. Getting 
away through the garden she straightened her 
thoughts after the brief clamour, saying to her- 
self: 

“I must be mad! Why do I want to go?” 

But she struck out for Greyladies at a sharp 
pace. 


VII 

There was much colour out and about this clear 
February day. Not alone the dark brightness of 
fir and pine thrown out against blue sky, or the 
drifts of red-brown leaves beneath the trees, or 
gloss of climbing evergreen and red and black of 
berry clusters among the brown of the leafless 
hedgerows. These were something, but not all. 
Marion saw the line of copse rising from the rich 
brown of the newly ploughed land as groupings of 
delicate and daring colour. There a patch of silver 
gray against a background of purple where slender 
trunks stood slim and straight in serried ranks; here 


2l6 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


the gray toning off into a faint pale green next a 
group whose sap ran red and painted every feathery 
branch to its smallest twig a hue hovering between 
red and brown and purple. Never had the woods 
offered a richer feast of colour than was now 
austerely proffered; with the faintly insolent 
austerity of young maidenhood, all unaware that 
half its beauty lies in promise of a maturity it dis- 
dains. 

The wood itself gave unexpected pleasure glimp- 
ses. Here catkins drooping in soft and graceful 
promise; there the thrill of primroses, purely pale 
against the moss or pushing up like delicate spears 
of green and yellow through the dead leaves. 
A fir tree had been felled; the scent of its resin 
reached Marion afar off and its stump glowed red 
in the dappled sunlight. She thought as she 
went: 

“He loves all this. Why is he going? What in 
Africa will appeal to him like the quiet beauty of an 
English wood?” And again in rebellion she went 
over the fact that he should go now, in all the 
promise of spring and summer. 

Nothing that she saw but added its quota to the 
sum of her suffering. Suffer she did, so intensely 
that she wondered again whether such pain could 
possibly go on, whether a period must not be put 
to it, perforce, as beyond the lirqits of human en- 
durance. 

Soon, none the less, she began to tell herself that 
she ought to be happy to-day; that at least she 
would see him, was now on her way to him. It was 


GOOD-BYE 


217 

the tea hour, so he would certainly be in. Of 
course, as she might have known, he would have 
his last tea with Miss Frances. They would be 
pleased to see her: Miss Frances would not count 
her an intruder and he — surely he would be pleased? 
His face would warm with a look of delightful 
expansion and pleasure; it would not to-day — 
surely not to-day — freeze and harden with the 
expression of inexplicable aloofness and restraint 
that more than once had shocked her. 

With her thoughts running so, in an endless, 
feverish circle,' she reached Greyladies. 

Before she rang the bell she knew that he was 
out. As she passed the window she had caught a 
glimpse of the warm, firelit interior — Miss Frances 
in her low chair by the fire, her hands lying un- 
wontedly empty in her lap; neither work nor book, 
it seemed, being in her thoughts. Tea was already 
cleared away; Marion knew this was so because, 
standing in the porch and scanning her mental 
picture, she saw the brass toast stand in the fender. 
This she knew was the last thing to be carried 
out as it was the last to be brought in. 

Miss Frances rose with a little cry of pleasure to 
greet her, kissing her on both cheeks. Marion saw 
that she was flushed with excitement and that her 
thin, ringed hands were tremulous. Her first utter- 
ance told Marion all she feared to hear. 

“I wish you had come earlier, darling. I wanted 
to send but John said ‘no; if you heard he was here 
you would be sure to come unless you disliked fare- 
wells.’ He seemed to think you might dislike 


2l8 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


them. Of course, men do. And I admitted that 
you were bound to learn from Warner that he was 
here. But I wish I had sent.” 

“He is gone, then?” said Marion. Her heart was 
beating to such strange measure that she felt 
suffocating. 

“He has gone out, yes. Not for good. Oh, no. 
Not until morning. He leaves at half -past nine.” 

“He has gone out now for the evening, then?” 
Marion persisted. She felt sick and very cold. 

“Until eight, dear. Mr. Gower is calling then. 
He asked me if I would mind if he tramped round 
for an hour or so. I do rather grudge the hours, but 
I told him no. I think he feels going, rather, now 
the time has come.” Miss Frances could not con- 
ceal that she was troubled and perplexed, as though 
she saw a John unfamiliar to her. 

“I see,” said Marion. “Yes, I thought I must 
just come to say good-bye.” 

Miss Frances murmured in the disturbed way so 
unlike her: “He has been here so much . . . 

we had such a lovely summer.” 

“And autumn,” said Marion, ‘ and winter.” 

Miss Frances smiled; her sweet look cleared. 

“Thank you, dear,” she said. “We must hold 
fast to our memories. Those we have for our sure 
possessing.” 

Marion sat down. Through her own pain she 
saw, though numbly, that this old and frail friend 
needed solace and comfort, all and more than she 
could give. Something new and strange in Miss 
Frances’s pain perplexed her. She wondered if the 


GOOD-BYE 


219 


mere will to give, without her heart in the effort, 
would be of any use. She said aloud: 

“I may stay half an hour. I had tea before I 
left.” 

“Iam just wondering, dear,” said Miss Frances, 
with a return of her perplexed and troubled man- 
ner, “whether John had any thought of looking in 
at Margaret’s Mead. He seemed to expect you at 
tea time — I expected you, too — and since he is 
tramping round he might tramp in that direction 
as well as any other.” 

Life flowed in Marion’s veins again at the sug- 
gestion, even although she read into her friend’s 
manner some doubt lest she should feel slighted at 
John’s failure to make certain of a final farewell 
to her. She was wrong in her interpretation: Miss 
Frances’s fear lay elsewhere. But it led her to 
reply, cheerfully: 

“Perhaps so, and whether I go or stay I must risk 
missing him. Which shall it be, dear? ” 

Miss Frances answered, thoughtfully: 

“He has not left the house long. He was not 
going straight to Margaret’s Mead, I feel sure. 
You would be sorry to miss him?” 

Marion gave a little laugh as she picked up her 
gloves. 

“ You mean I must march,” she said, gaily. She 
embraced her friend with fond deliberateness. 
“What you really are afraid of is that I shall be be- 
nighted in the woods. See how the last crimson 
is fading from the sky?” 

Final farewell remarks were uttered in the porch, 


220 


MARGARETS MEAD 


whence Miss Frances watched her through the gate 
and up the road in the fast-declining day. 

VIII 

As she walked home Marion counted the hours 
that remained during which it was at all possible 
that she could see John Preston. She made them 
less than three. It was now past five and at eight 
o’clock the Vicar would be awaiting him at Grey- 
ladies. Moreover, eight would be considered a late 
hour for calling in the country in mid-winter. 
Marion told herself that if he came he must come 
before half-past seven. 

With the increasing tenuousness of her hope of 
seeing him her craving and her despair deepened. 
In the tumult of her emotions she had no time to ask 
what she hoped from seeing him; her sole conscious- 
ness was of impending loss: utter, imminent, deso- 
lating. Every moment this grew sharper, her 
expectation more lost and feverish, her heart more 
numb. 

“It is the poorness of my possessions makes me 
suffer so,” she thought, aghast at the ruin wrought 
in her. “If he knew it, would he sacrifice some- 
what to lessen it? ” Calm sense told her he would 
be merely amazed, confounded, incredulous. 

She reached home. 

She entered by the front door though she would 
have preferred the kitchen to interrogate Kate 
on her way. But she bethought herself that if he 
was in the house he would leave by the front door 
and the garden, and in those few moments she 


GOOD-BYE 


221 


might miss him. She heard Phyllis’s voice and the 
children’s. Then Kate came into the hall. 

She asked: “Has anybody called, Kate?” 

“No, Miss. Mr. Will has gone out and said he 
wouldn’t be back to supper till ten. He’s gone 
to a Temperance meeting in Minterne. Mr. 
Napier’s in the dining room.” 

“Thank you, Kate.” She passed on her way up- 
stairs, praying that Walter would go out. 

When she came down, however, she found that 
Clare and Bobbie were with him and he was 
patiently keeping them amused. He looked up as 
she entered and after a quick glance remarked, 
laconically: 

“You’ve walked too far.” 

“Oh, no,” Marion answered. “I’ve been to 
Grey ladies.” She knew he guessed it. 

“Did you run down your quarry?” 

“Did I what?” 

“Did you find Preston in?” 

“No,” said Marion. His tone made her tremble. 
She found herself adding: “Miss Frances thought I 
should find him here.” 

“Sent to say good-bye,” said Walter, in an am- 
biguous tone. “Kiddies’ bedtime at six, isn’t it?” 

“Usually.” 

“Leave them to me, then. I m not going out till 
quarter past. There’s an Athenceum in the oak 
room if you care to see it.” 

Marion wondered, “Does he think I’m ill?” 
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she 
turned away and knew at once that he did, so large 


222 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


and hollow and unnaturally bright were the eyes 
that met hers, so exactly like Lottie’s. She re- 
membered that she had eaten nothing all day. 

In the oak room she found Kate mending the fire. 
The room seemed to her very hot. Kate asked: 

“ Won’t you have something to eat, Miss?” 

“No, thank you, Kate.” The thought of food 
was nauseating. “Ask Phyllis to get the children 
off sharp at six. I will come up when they’re in 
bed.” 

Kate stared again; putting the children to bed 
was a task Marion rarely relinquished. 

“No, don’t light the lamp,” Marion admonished. 
As soon as Kate had gone she began a restless, 
dreary pacing of the room. 

She perceived that at the first sign of tiredness 
or flagging appetite the whole household imagined 
she was going to follow Lottie; she grimly thought 
this lucky, knowing her health was sound. Then 
her thoughts resumed their restless circling, while 
her glance strayed over to the darkening garden 
path. 

She fancied that the sound of every movement 
in the house reached her. Phyllis came out of the 
kitchen, pausing to finish a conversation with her 
hand on the door. Marion heard it finally shut as 
she concluded. Then she claimed the children; 
after a brief parley their voices sounded in the hall, 
up the stairs, in the bedroom above. Walter went 
into the hall; his last act was to take his whip 
from the rack. Marion knew that he was driving — 
not far, or he would have had the car. Will pre- 


GOOD-BYE 


223 


sumably was cycling, his being the nearer distance. 
She heard the trap brought round and soon the last 
crunch of wheels and beat of hoofs upon the hard 
road as it was driven away. Out of doors the 
countryside was wrapped in a profound silence. 

She went upstairs to kiss the children good-night. 
Less than an hour remained to her now! As she 
turned to come down a sharp ring of the door bell 
resounded through the house. 

She listened at the stairhead, trembling with fear 
of disappointment. But the tones were unmistak- 
able. She rested both hands on the balustrade as 
Kate ran up to announce, primly: 

“Mr. Preston, Miss.” 

Her state of tension relaxed suddenly and 
completely. The floor seemed unsteady under her 
feet as she went downstairs. 

IX 

He stood by the fire. Kate had lit the lamp and 
was now drawing the curtains. Marion gave him 
a perfunctory greeting, longing for Kate to finish 
her task and go. When she did so and closed the 
door she found herself murmuring: 

“I walked over to Greyladies this afternoon.” 

“ Did you? ” A curious quality in his voice made 
her raise her eyes for her first long look at him. He 
stood tall, well carried, well dressed, yet with an 
unusual look about him of strain, excitement, 
tension. But she saw little more than the man 
she must soon lose. So in a moment or two he 
added, quietly: 


224 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“To say good-bye to me?” 

She echoed: “To say good-bye.” 

“You thought you would like to do that?” A 
gentle irony in his words sent her eyes to him again, 
hurt and shocked. He added: 

“My one idea has been to avoid saying good- 
bye to you.” 

She forced a smile in her bewilderment and pain, 
meant to convey: “But you are here.” 

He answered the look. 

“I came down to Grey ladies to see you. For no 
other reason. Then I decided I must not seek to 
see you. And for the last two hours I have been 
trying not to come.” 

Marion repeated the words after him as though 
feeling for their meaning. A second self seemed 
whispering in her ears: “Collect yourself. Re- 
member, he doesn’t know that you are stupefied 
with pain.” 

When she had repeated them she heard him say- 
ing: “Is that so strange to you?” 

She answered: “I don’t understand.” 

“Surely then I must explain,” he said. He was 
smiling at her strangely, his fine face ashen. She 
met his look. Her doubts fled. 

On an irresistible impulse she told him : 

“If you had succeeded, if you had not come, I 
don’t think I could have lived.” 

Naturally, as it seemed to her, warmth and colour 
returned to his face. And, indeed, the words that 
were on his lips — passionate, hungry words — he 
checked, constraining himself to unbend to her idea 


GOOD-BYE 


225 


of him, in that moment instinctively perceived. 
So, naturally, in the manner familiar to her, he 
took her hands in his and, putting her into the old 
cosy settle, seated himself beside her. 

“What, then, would have happened?” he asked. 
“Would you have braved the wood by night and I 
have been wakened by a tapping at the lattice, only 
to find a spirit haunted me and that you had left 
your mortal frame untenanted to find me? How 
would you be sure I should meet and know you 
in that land of dreams?” His voice changed. 
“ Marion,” he said, “ I do not want your spirit only, 
though I want that, too. I have come to tell you 
that I want you in the body.” 

She looked at him with parted lips, her eyes 
shining, her breath coming fast. 

“I so want you,” he repeated, urgently, “that I 
could not tear myself away and leave unspoken the 
words that might win you. You hear me say I 
love you. Do you love me?” 

He had lifted her out of the planes of calm reason. 
Her impulse was to give him the truth — bare as 
she saw it, with : “Dearly, more than my life.” But 
every ideal and aspiration of her life joined forces 
to drive the answer back. Watching her eagerly 
he grasped at perception of the obstacle in his path. 

“I love you,” he repeated, glance and grasp gain- 
ing passion. “I begin to believe you love me. 
You will not tell me that you hold me married?” 

The spell she had been under broke at the word, 
at his scorn that refuted it. She took her hands 
from his. 


226 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“No,” she said. “Only the law holds you so. 
We have discussed the question often, veiled and 
disguised. It does not alter because it now be- 
comes pertinent to me and you. And what does it 
matter? To-morrow you go away.” 

He took her hands again, his glance burning, and 
drew her very near to him. 

“You love me,” he said, undenied. “I came be- 
cause I could not say good-bye. Then do you think 
I have come to say it? Love is not an abstraction. 
It has needs, living and urgent. You will come 
with me.” 

“To-morrow?” A gentle mockery found its 
way into her voice. 

“To-morrow. It will be easy.” Almost as he 
spoke he dovetailed his plans together — plans 
deliberately made to make this thing he now en- 
treated for quite impossible. “I will call for you 
on my way to the station. You will be going into 
Minterne, shopping. You will never come back.” 

“Never come back,” said Marion, as though she 
humoured him. A second self was clamouring for 
the moments to be prolonged; the moments in 
which he held her hands enclosed in his; held her so 
close to him that his breath stirred her hair and she 
almost heard his heartbeats. “ Never come back — 
and leave everything I possess behind me? ” 

“Pack the things you want to-night. Leave 
them in the hedge near the gate. I will return at 
twelve and fetch them. The case, or box, what you 
will, will pass as mine. I am serious, Marion.” 

“I see you are, but you should not be. Do you 


GOOD-BYE 


227 

think for one moment I would consent to ruin your 
life?” 

“ Words!” he said. “ Melodrama! Who will 
know in South Africa? They do know I am mar- 
ried. You will be my wife.” 

She drew a deep breath. If it were possible! 
His mind skimmed over many possibilities. It 
was but to burn his letters of introduction and for- 
get them. To lie a little; manoeuvre a little ; fail 
to settle down to the work he went out to do. And 
so to move on. If Marion left a letter most prob- 
ably the Napiers would prefer to hush it up. If 
not at the worst Robert might get his wife to divorce 
him. In any event, he would have Marion; they 
would be together. He repeated the fatuous 
sentence: “My wife.” 

Marion said: “You know it would not be so.” 

“Do you doubt my love for you, my care for 
you?” 

She answered, “No.” 

“You believe I have fought this; that I am driven 
to it against my will? Because it is the only 
possible thing for us? Could you face separation? 
Can you face it now? ” 

Marion’s sick heart answered “no” but the word 
did not reach her lips. The mingled pain and bliss 
of the moment swayed her between heights and 
depths. Her lover’s voice urged her: 

“So promise me.” 

“I cannot.” 

He looked at her searchingly. “You want to 
come?” 


228 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


“I do not want to lose you.” 

“ Unless you come, you must lose me.” There 
was in the words a suspicion of the immaturity and 
crudity of the nature he appealed to. He seemed 
to see the possibility of Marion living in a different 
world from his. A suspicion not new to him; a 
possibility not seen now for the first time. He 
added to his words: 

“You see that, don’t you?” 

“This last year,” said Marion, with painful stops 
between her halting words, “I have been so happy. 
I thought it was just the beginning of happy and 
happier days.” 

“Child!” he cried, a wistful tenderness in the 
word. “Would that it could! But all this year, 
Marion, you have kept me starving. Will you 
decide now? ” 

“I cannot.” 

“Then, before ten, and I can still make our plans. 
I know I must give you time to think. You will 
think I am waiting. . . . And you will send 

to me. Any message, any sign — a book, a note — 
one word. You must send it. You must give 
in.” 

Suddenly Marion saw the truth. She uttered, 
surprising herself, as it were without volition of her 
own: 

“I never shall.” 

He dropped her hands and took a short turn away 
from her. When he returned his face wore a new 
aspect, the look she loved most of all. 

“I hope, for your sake, you will not,” he said, 


GOOD-BYE 


229 


quietly. “How do I know that I could make you 
happy? I only know that you could make me so. 
And that instead I shall be very desolate.” 

Nothing he had said yet wooed her as did those 
words. Marion caught her breath. Not knowing 
what she did she laid her two hands on his arm. 
She said, in a laboured voice: 

“It is too hard. Why must you go?” 

His arms went round her. Never had he loved 
her beauty as he loved now her young tortured 
face. How easy to have answered so that he might 
live in her thoughts for ever, crowned king above all 
men. But he pressed on steadily to a goal that 
seemed suddenly long foreseen. 

“ Marion, say aloud that you love me. Give me 
your lips.” 

She did both, as though she had but waited for 
that urgent word. He held her with his lips pressed 
hotly and softly to hers. Her heart prayed that 
time might stand still. Yet in a few minutes she 
made a movement of withdrawal. Instantly she 
heard him saying: 

“I have asked you for nothing that you ought 
not to give. Be glad I am going. If I had stayed 
I should have asked and you . . . would have 

given.” 

She drew a slow, tortured breath. She saw that 
he was forcing recognition on her. It was their 
last hour together out of an eternity of absence and 
he must spoil it! She answered, sharply: 

“No.” 

“I should ask,” he repeated. “You know that — 


230 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


now — don’t you?” She made no answer and he 
said again: “ So be glad I am going.” 

He wrung out her reply: “I don’t believe it.” 

He looked down into her eyes, his own burning. 

“It is true of me,” he said. “It is true. So 
there is no future for us here possible. You must 
believe that, or you will not forgive me for going. 
Would it not be true of you? ” He no longer looked 
into her eyes, but said on a new note of urgency: 
“Let me believe it. It helps me to go. Please.” 
He strove to strain her to him against her with- 
drawal. 

She answered, hopelessly, “You must let me go 
now.” As his arms fell from her she saw that his 
face had become white and anguished. She felt 
driven back to him and knew that she must not 
touch him. She moved away, murmuring: 

“Good-bye.” 

He turned to her a pale and gentle look that 
forced smarting tears to her hot eyes. He took her 
hand so that she thought — she hoped — he would 
again draw her to him. But he released it with a 
pressure and his half-tender, half-humorous smile 
quivered momentarily on his lips as he returned her 
“good-bye.” 

She had forced him to say it. It was over and 
she left him. His last look — all gentleness, tender- 
ness, pain — stayed with her. Yet there had been 
the other moments, not to be forgotten. She would 
forget them, utterly, she told herself, as they were 
utterly forgiven. Yet she clenched her hands; 
her breath hurried. Was this life, never adequate, 


GOOD-BYE 


231 


never complete; made up of cross purposes and 
loose ends? Not even this memory without alloy! 

She muttered to herself, under her breath: 

“Yet this is the best, quite the best man I know.” 
And added, presently, with sudden dreary self- 
derision: “And this is me. And I love him! ,, 

She had gained her room and knelt at the bedside. 
Presently she heard the creak of the garden gate 
on its hinges. She rose on an impulse and stepped 
quietly across her darkened room to the window. 
Was it he, and was he going or returning? 

Yes, it was Mr. Preston. He had lingered, then, 
in the garden; on some new hope, or purpose, or 
regret. She watched him close the gate, pause 
again in the bright moonlight, and at last proceed 
with his fine swinging gait up the road. She 
noticed that he had lit a cigar. 


The Inevitable Close 


i 

Marion had stood a long time at the window in 
the darkness before Kate knocked at the door. 
Against the dull background of her pain and loss 
the feverish emotions of the past hour stood out in 
her memory vivid and incredible. She felt her 
lover’s touch, his kisses— his, so incredibly, so 
incredibly her lover — heard the varying intonations 
of his voice; its plea, its strong yet reluctant as- 
sertion. It seemed unthinkable that all this pas- 
sion — so prized, so wonderful — could be hers for 
one half hour and then for ever banished. 

Her eyes were dry and burning, her face hot, her 
mouth parched. Since he passed out of sight she 
had seen nothing of the moonlit winter scene 
stretched before her, nor had retained consciousness 
of the dark room behind. Then Kate knocked, and 
in a moment her brain became preternaturally alert. 
She flew to her dressing-table. Kate would think 
her mad to stay in the cold and dark! 

With eager fingers she struck a match and lit 
both the candles before she called, “Come in.” 

Kate heJd a scrap of paper toward her: a leaf 
torn from a pocket book. 

“Mr. Preston left this for you, Miss. I asked 
232 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


233 

him should I give it you at once, and he said any 
time within an hour. He would not let me call 
you down.’ 7 

Marion took the paper but did not attempt to 
read it. She said: 

“Then he came back?’’ 

“Just as I was closing the door, Miss. He gave 
me the message first and then laughed and said I 
should forget the name ‘Ouzmann’s’ or something.” 

There was no help for it, Kate’s expectation was 
obvious; Marion read the message now. She had 
wished to keep it awhile, to feel that for yet a few 
minutes she held something of his in store. 

The pencilled words ran: 

Send “Ouzmann’s” back to me by Warner if you 
decide to read it on the spot. 

That was all, but Marion’s hands shook as she 
read. “Ouzmann’s” was a slender book on South 
Africa lent to her when he first talked of going 
there. His words came back to her — “any mes- 
sage, any sign — a book, a note — one word.” And 
now “Send ‘Ouzmann’s’ back to me if you decide 
to read it on the spot.” 

A movement of Kate’s brought her back to the 
present. She looked up with an absent, “Thank 
you,” and then added, “I am coming downstairs in 
a minute. Will you heat me a glass of milk, 
please?” 

She put out the candles and went down and 
restlessly moved about the room until Kate brought 


234 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


the milk, and again after. The note had wrought 
a strange revolution in her mood. With it in her 
hand John Preston’s proposal became for the first 
time a real, tangible, practicable thing. 

Hitherto it had been a wild suggestion, thrown 
out on the crest of a wave of emotion; now it was an 
earnest proposition, persisted in to the point of 
making the first step easy. She seemed to see 
the process of his reasoning and to know that he 
meant the note to reach her after a lapse of time, 
when its meaning would strike with force. 

It was not over yet ; decision was left to her. But 
her decision was made, as he knew. The note in 
her hand told her he did not know, did not believe. 
He still hoped. Could she fail him? 

The very immaturity and inexperience that John 
Preston deprecated fought for him. Marion did 
not pause as an older woman might, to calculate the 
effect of her decision upon his view of her, nor to 
imagine in what new light fresh relations might give 
him to her. She believed with the infatuated 
blindness of youth that what they were now to 
each other they would for ever be. She had im- 
plicit faith in her love and her lover. But ... . 

She knew that what she had said to him held 
good. Nothing was altered. No action was right 
or wrong in itself — it became right or wrong only 
in relation to the circumstances surrounding it. 
It did not matter that to-night she was unable to 
see a clear issue, that right and wrong appeared 
inextricably tangled. To-night she was hardly 
sane; confused and bewildered with pain and 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


235 

passion. The more reason that she should abide 
by conclusions arrived at when she was sane. 

11 

Warner, the under-carter who lived close to 
Grey ladies, usually went home about nine o’clock 
after “ racking up.” He was brother to Kate, his 
late hour of leaving being largely brought about by 
the easy concession that if he chose to spend the 
dark evenings in the bright cosy kitchen with his 
sister and the daily paper he was welcome to do so. 
A further concession being that Kate should draw 
him a mug of cider and mull it if she would in the 
pointed warmer that nosed itself so cutely into the 
glowing cinders, and add thereto a generous supper 
of bread and cheese, it is small wonder that Warner 
could be counted on to “rack up” at half-past eight 
each night and start for home at nine with the 
regularity of clockwork. 

Marion, of course, knew this well. She knew, too, 
that in giving his message first verbally to Kate, 
John Preston had ensured that Warner would not 
leave without enquiring whether Marion had a 
message for Grey ladies. 

Though so much had happened it was early yet 
— not more than half -past seven. The moon rode 
high in a clear sky; night silence encompassed the 
house about. The fire settled itself in the grate, 
grew gray, was stirred, revivified and replenished: 
its burning and settling, and the dropping of its 
ash, made the only sounds in the quiet room. 
Marion thought; her face set but her eyes burning 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


236 

to the inward conflict. Fevered, wild, passionate 
longing — fear of suffering, fear of loneliness — held 
at grips by her sense of duty so long as power of 
choice remained. 

Duty to whom? No soul lived to whom Marion 
owed duty, who had a right to claim it of her as a 
debt. Then to whom did she make sacrifice? For 
she was young in spirit — too young to know un- 
generous though prudent fear. 

If at that hour catchwords floated before her 
eyes; she turned from them in sick rejection. Some- 
times she murmured to herself, “I can hold on.” 
She looked out blindly. Honour, duty, morality — 
to play the game — to love one’s neighbour — all 
were forms, words, shibboleths. Looking out she 
saw only a path on which she had set her feet. 
“ I can hold on.” 

At last Kate came to the door. She asked, as 
Marion expected: 

“Is there a message for Greyladies, Miss?” 

Marion held the book in her hands, but, with her 
back to the door, she looked before her with burn- 
ing eyes. She said: 

“None, thank you, Kate.” 

Her voice was quite inaudible. Kate therefore 
waited. After a moment, finding the door re- 
mained open, Marion turned in surprise. Then she 
said again, quickly, 

“None, thank you. I answered before.” 

Kate went out, quietly closing the door. Marion 
listened, tensely, for the sound of Warner’s de- 
parture. After a brief interval she heard his foot- 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


237 


steps and familiar whistle. She dropped “Ouz- 
mann’s” and fell to twisting a handkerchief con- 
vulsively in her hands. It was suddenly sundered 
into two halves, one part held in each hand with 
jagged centre depending, which, after staring at, 
she dropped. Unconsciously she began to utter 
half-words and little incoherent cries. 

in 

If Marion had permitted herself debate, it is 
unlikely that revulsion of feeling would have set in 
quite as it did. But since she had refused to 
contemplate a possibility, the possibility revenged 
itself by assuming the guise of accomplished fact. 

Within fifteen minutes of Warner’s departure 
she suddenly stilled her feverish movements and 
frenzied ejaculations. She stood quite still and 
motionless, the blood draining from her cheeks. 

She thought, as though aloud, with amazing 
clearness and distinctness: 

“I was mad. It is not too late. I can be at 
Greyladies before ten. I will take ‘OuzmannV 
myself.” 

Without pausing, she went upstairs and put on 
her outdoor things. Without pausing, and very 
quietly and swiftly, she let herself out at the hall- 
door. Even by moonlight she disliked long, lonely 
country walks at night, but now she put all 
thought of strangeness from her. She was very sure 
and resolute, and she must make haste. She must, 
or at least she hoped to, get back to Margaret’s. 
Mead before Will or Walter; though it would not 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


238 

matter if they knew she had been out; why should 
it? But nevertheless she must make haste. 

She did hasten; her thoughts hastened more. 
Miss Frances’s staid maid would answer her ring; 
and she would say — what should she say when 
she gave her the book? 

She pondered that feverishly, but soon got her 
formula ready. 

“Will you please give that to Mr. Preston at 
once? He wants to pack it. I must not stay — 
Mr. Napier is waiting for me.” 

That would not be wholly untrue. If either of 
the Napiers had reached home they would be wait- 
ing for her. Besides, a lie like that — what mattered 
one lie, more or less? Only lies that injured people 
really mattered. Of course, that was a sophistry. 
All lies matter. Only truth. . . . 

She put her hands to her ears, exasperated, as 
though she listened to the needless argument. She 
reminded herself. “Of course I know all that. 
Why labour it now?” 

She did not take the road through the wood, but 
by the hard white highroad. What a joke if she 
should pass Walter or Will! She would linger by 
the tall, shadowy hedge if she saw bicycle or vehicle, 
and they would pass by, thinking her a couple. 
Now she turned off the highroad. Not far, now, 
to Greyladies. 

She had gained the shadow of the trees fringing 
the garden. The white gate gleamed ahead. Then 
suddenly her heart leapt. She passed by the gate 
and walked, very quietly, on by the side of the house. 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


239 


Yes, her sudden fear was verified. The kitchen 
quarters were ifi darkness. The maids had gone 
to bed. 

Standing very still in the shadow of the house 
she asked herself, “Who, then, will answer if I ring? 
Mr. John — Miss Frances? ” 

She saw either alternative as impossible. Was 
she to hand the book, the sign of her surrender, to 
her lover — murmur her impossible, incoherent ex- 
planation of her presence, and leave him standing 
to watch her down the path from the door? Would 
she dare — could she dare face the impression he 
might make on her as he took it? 

Standing mute and motionless by the house wall 
she knew it was impossible. Nor less impossible 
that she should essay a lying explanation if Miss 
Frances opened the door. 

Suddenly she bethought herself of the letter-box. 
She looked at the book. Would it go in? Turning 
it over, she thought it might. Only it must reach 
Mr. John before ten! She could thrust it in, give 
the bell a long pull, and fly. He would think it was 
Warner, late. 

She stole to the gate. She was unnerved now, 
with the thoroughness of strung nerves breaking 
to the unforeseen and unexpected. She hated and 
feared the crunching of her steps on the gravel of the 
path. The light was gone from the hall, which was 
good, for whoever answered the bell would pause 
to bring a light and so give her time to get away. 
Just a streak down one side of the curtained windows 
showed that somebody was still about downstairs. 


240 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


She reached the door and tried the letter-box. 
The book would not go in — it was nowhere near 
small enough. Again Marion stood still — quite 
motionless. She thought — the hot blood surging 
in her ears. After a moment, quite deliberately 
and very quietly, she turned away. 

She walked back toward Margaret’s Mead at a 
sharp pace. When she was more than half way a 
clear thought struck across the passion and tumult 
of her breast. She stood still a moment as though 
to listen to it, then again pressed resolutely on. 

“You could have torn out the title-page,” said 
the clear voice of after- thought in her ear, “and 
folded it into a note. If Miss Frances picked it up 
she would be certain to comment on it, or he to 
enquire. He said ‘any sign; one word.’” 

Marion silently answered the torturing voice. 
“It is too late. I am no longer sure. It is after 
ten.” 

The voice answered: “What a lover, to leave the 
last step to you! And you — so weak, and such a 
bungler!” 

Marion’s lips twisted into an awful, self-con- 
temptuous smile. She hurried, sometimes stumb- 
ling. As she entered the house the clock in the hall 
struck the half hour past ten. At the same mo- 
ment she caught the first sound of Walter’s return- 
ing wheels. 


IV 

Before Walter entered the house Marion had 
time to ascertain that Will had not returned and to 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


241 


take her candle and go upstairs. She was not sure 
whether Kate or Phyllis had noticed her absence, 
nor did she care. She had bade them a listless 
good-night; told Phyllis it was past her bed- 
time, and now as listlessly gazed on the sleeping 
children before finally seeking her own room. 

Entering, she thought heavily, “I am tired,” 
but she made no movement to undress. Instead 
she drew back the curtains from her window and 
looked out into the night. She told herself “It is 
all over,” and recalled how — not three hours ago — 
she had watched John Preston walk away and noted 
that he had lit a cigar. Undesired, a thought 
jeered at her: a mocking, self-derisive thought that 
she would fain have slaughtered, and could not. 
It told her that not morals, nor ethics, nor principles 
had availed her in her strait; she had abandoned 
all. Accident had decided the course she should 
pursue. The second accident was that the ser- 
vants at Greyladies had gone to bed early; but the 
first that John Preston had lit a cigar. 

More than once, in her long walk home, the 
remembrance of words and looks in their brief 
interview had almost sent her back to risk meeting 
Miss Frances — to hope that she would not see 
her, but instead that Mr. John would open the door 
and she would see again in his eyes the glow of 
exquisite tenderness that had accompanied his 
avowal. She thought of his pain and her power 
to dispel it: the new man — so new, yet familiar 
as dear — that the evening had given her. Why 
should she fear to give him what he asked — doubt 


242 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


his reception of what he had pleaded for? And 
then, as a hand draws a sponge across a slate, these 
memories were wiped out. For answer she saw 
clearly a man self-reliant, confident, composed, 
casually but carefully lighting a cigar. 

What was it that it should weigh with her? She 
knew that John Preston would do that, sub- 
consciously, unwittingly, by sheer force of habit. 
Was he the man to be reduced to a pitiable image 
of weak despair, a slinking craven? Ah, she knew 
all that, yet it had its weight. It reminded her 
that life was long and passion short. That passion- 
ate moments were but the episodes and common- 
place the tale. That for one hour when John Pres- 
ton would be her lover there must be hundreds 
when he would be the man of the world. 

fit was hard to define and express, yet Marion 
recognized a truth. In loneliness and darkness to 
be his and his alone — that were good. But all day, 
in the hard brightness of daylight, in the world of 
men; at work or at leisure, in the public eye — would 
he be hers then? Would love weave them bonds 
or shackles? 

She said aloud: “Were he but free!” 
v Her thoughts pressed on. Sometimes it was her 
torture that accident alone had had power to keep 
her from him; sometimes it was her joy. The day 
was to dawn when she saw it as no accident, but as 
the inevitable result of what she had chosen to 
become. Had she been different such accidents 
would not have turned her from her course, and 
that they did so was no more accidental than her 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


243 


impulsive yielding. But to-night she pursued other 
paths. Soon she burned to the knowledge that 
indeed she desired him — desired him with no mere 
girlish idealization, but from a womanhood sud- 
denly realized, refined, mature. Desired him 
wholly, entirely, altogether. 

She said to herself in despair: 

“Some day, when he has been long gone, when 
I believe he has forgotten, I shall yield to a lesser 
love, and marry.” 

She shivered to a sick horror of the thought until 
the vision faded. With sudden, dreary prevision, 
she smiled. 

“Not so,” she answered the silent accusation. 
“I shall remember, and go starving to my grave.” 

v 

Miss Frances had hardly parted from Marion 
before she regretted letting her go. Why had she 
not kept her on the chance of John returning? 
Better far that they should meet under her eye at 
Grey, ladies. 

For by now whatever uncertainty she might feel 
in regard to Marion, she felt none in regard to 
John. Why should he leave like that — abruptly, 
inconveniently, inexplicably — and why return? 
Miss Frances knew that warm affection for aged 
aunts does not lead men to rush across England 
for the sake of an hour or two with them after a 
deliberately taken farewell. John had been at 
Liverpool with his father only the day before. And 
if he came for Marion — to what end? 


244 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


His return caused her painful trouble and excite- 
ment. On the one hand, all her sympathies were 
with him; on the other, she knew life well. All the 
manoeuvres, the deceits, the hypocrisies, that are 
the inevitable degrading attendants upon illicit 
love — however blameless — she knew well. Under 
their constant infliction sensibilities become blunt; 
a certain distortion or perversion of morals becomes 
necessary to self-preservation. At the best a con- 
scious distortion; at the worst a perversion un- 
perceived. 

All day, ever since she saw her nephew striding 
past her window, she had asked herself : Will they 
meet? If so, what will be said, what done? She 
had earnestly wished to send for Marion and had 
regarded it as of the illest omen that John should 
wish her coming left to chance. A quiet tea-hour; 
what could have happened amiss? And yet — and 
yet — somehow she wished that they might have 
their hour! 

She had sent Marion away in a moment of yield- 
ing to her knowledge of how hungrily she, in her 
youth, would have desired that hour. Almost at 
once she wished her back, in a tumult of fear lest 
it should mar, rather than make, her peace. And 
then the slow hours of John’s absence stole by. 
It was six, seven, eight. On the stroke of eight he 
came in with Mr. Gower, just as had been arranged, 
for an informal dinner. 

The Vicar had chanced upon him in the morning 
and eagerly claimed his interest for a nephew going 
out to South Africa in a few months’ time. Miss 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


245 


Frances, watching anxiously, saw him his courteous 
and serious best for the old man’s benefit. But 
soon she fancied a constant subtle suggestion of 
listening behind his quiet talk. The door bell rang 
half way through dinner and instantly Miss 
Frances knew that she was right. He expected some- 
thing or someone. She longed to ask, “Have you 
seen Marion?” but her very anxiety sealed her lips. 

It was half-past nine before Mr. Gower offered to 
go, and by that time Miss Frances felt that John’s 
expectation had reached its height; his preoccupa- 
tion with the sounds outside had become marked; 
his attention to his guest hard to maintain. Whom 
was he expecting? Not Marion, at this hour. A 
messenger, a message. Miss Frances’s intuitions 
stopped little short of the truth. 

The Vicar was older than Miss Frances and far 
more feeble and bent. When he rose to go John 
rose, as usual, to go home with him. Protesting, 
Mr. Gower leant thankfully on his arm. It was a 
short walk to the Vicarage; John was not gone long. 
But when he returned Miss Frances saw that the 
look, of strained expectation had faded, leaving a 
sombre, spiritless dejection. And now she feared 
to frame her question, “Have you seen Marion?” 
but did so in spite of fear. 

He answered: “Yes. I called and said good- 
bye to her. She told me she came over while I was 
out.” With an evident effort he went on to regret 
that he had not returned earlier. “I believe I have 
done you more harm than good by coming,” he 
said. “You look tired out.” 


246 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


Miss Frances admitted being rather tired and 
yielded to his insistence that she should go early to 
bed. She knew all there was to know, and felt 
heavy at heart. She pieced her knowledge to- 
gether as she went upstairs. 

John had seen Marion: they had said good-bye. 
Yet all the evening he had expected a message. 
At half-past nine, when he went out with Mr. Gower, 
he still expected it. When he returned he expected 
it no more. 

With a woman’s acuteness she made her deduc- 
tions. If between leaving for the Vicarage and 
returning his expectation was banished, one of two 
things must have happened. Either the messenger 
was intercepted or a time limit had expired. Miss 
Frances suspected the former. Warner’s cottage 
lay between Greyladies and the Vicarage, and 
Warner was a constant go-between from Grey- 
ladies to Margaret’s Mead. 

The final deduction was easy to make. A mes- 
sage could only be so eagerly and anxiously awaited 
from a lover; neither coldness nor mere friendliness 
has such response to make. John had asked some- 
thing which was only now finally denied. Until 
his return he had the look of hoping against hope. 
Now hope was dead. 

Miss Frances paused by the landing window over 
the sunken porch and stood looking sadly out into 
the moonlit night. How like Marion to mingle 
with her love the cold of rectitude and strength of 
refusal. Or was that strength weakness — was it 
ignorance, fear, mere conventionality? At any 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


247 

rate, it was not hardness or insensibility, or mere 
flat indifference; on no such foundation could John 
have built hope. Suddenly Miss Frances’s view 
of her favourite lost its tinge of jealous criticism. 
With a sharp pang of self-reproach she thought: 
“How she will suffer!” 

A swift rush of tears blinded her. In the next 
moment, brushing them aside, she saw a shadow 
pass the gate. Gazing intently and straining her 
ears to listen she fancied she heard light, lingering 
footsteps on the road. Then she caught her breath. 
Someone opened the garden gate and ventured up 
the path. It was Marion. Instinctively Miss 
Frances shrank back into the shadow. 

Was it an appointment? Would John go out? 
Miss Frances chid herself for the thought. Never 
would he have asked Marion to come to him alone 
at night. And again she jumped at a conclusion. 
Her heart beat thick. Momently she expected the 
ring of the bell. 

But instead she saw the small drama play itself 
out: heard the click of the letter-box, saw Marion 
retreat; saw that she still carried her small packet 
in her hand. John evidently had heard nothing. 
Miss Frances remembered that he was no longer 
expectant, and that in the drawing room heavy cur- 
tains and shutters deadened sounds from without. 

But while Marion was in the porch she bethought 
herself that she ought to rush and open the door. 
But would that be desired? Doubt and dismay and 
cold fear deterred her. But at last — at last — as 
Marion unfastened and refastened the gate, the 


248 MARGARET’S MEAD 

drawing-room door opened and John stepped out 
into the hall. 

She thought, in a panic: “He heard and will 
follow and see her clearly in the moonlit road. 
What must I do? ” 

She called out quickly: “John!” 

She fancied she could hear his start. He an- 
swered, hurriedly drawing a bolt: 

“Is that you, Aunt? Do you want me?” 

“Just for one moment.” 

He left the door and came upstairs two at a time. 
He paused arrested as he found her at the window 
clinging to the heavy curtain. 

He said, pantingly: “What is the matter?” 

“I have been standing here,” she answered, 
painfully, “and suddenly I stumbled. Did you 
hear me?” 

He replied, dully: “I thought I heard steps out- 
side.” 

She shook her head. 

“No. I should have seen as well as heard. I’m 
sorry I disturbed you.” 

He asked in the same level flat tone: “Are you 
faint or hurt?” When she said “No” he added: 
“I will get you some brandy.” 

He saw her to her room and hurried downstairs. 
Miss Frances knew as well as if he had told her that 
he meant to assure himself that the road was clear. 
She heard him hasten to a downstair passage win- 
dow that gave it to him from end to end and fling it 
open. She murmured to herself, “Too late.” She 
heard the window closed and fastened and his. 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


249 

lagging steps below. The hall clock struck the 
hour of ten. 

When he had brought her the brandy and 
lingered, talking kindly, and had made up her fire 
and sought for anything else that he could do, and, 
at last, left her, Miss Frances felt as though her 
heart would break. 

Had she played traitor to the two she loved best 
on earth? Had she done right? Why — oh, why — 
had decision been given at last to her? 

She put out her light and essayed to kneel by her 
bedside, feeling suddenly very old and frail. Her 
feet stumbled, shuffling, amongst the mats. Clasp- 
ing her hands — the thin, pathetic hands of age — she 
sought among her trembling thoughts for prayer. 

“Oh, God,” she prayed, “forgive me if I have 
done wrong.” She paused, her eyes streaming, and 
rejected many forms. “Oh, God, count it to them 
for good.” Suddenly, with energy, possibilities 
pressing upon her — the warmth of love fulfilled, 
the cold of love denied — she laid desperate hands 
upon eternal right. 

“Bless them; and let them be blessed. Sure of 
Thy help; confident in good.” 

The last two phrases she repeated tensely, with 
varying emphasis, many times. 

vi 

All night long John Preston fought despair — • 
remorseful despair for what in the past day he had, 
after all, chosen to do. 


250 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


Always he saw Marion’s face of reluctant awaken- 
ing. What had the vision meant to her that he had 
spoilt? If he could give it back to her would it be 
solace, comfort, hope? What solace was it to walk 
awake with truth? 

So through the long night, regretting, desiring, 
repenting. Hating himself for destroying; hating 
fiercely what he had destroyed. And craving, 
craving above all to know that Marion still held him 
warmly in her pure regard. 

He wrote to her — wrote many letters, and burnt 
them one after the other as containing hardly a grain 
of truth. Who that is aware of the medley of 
motives, the cross-currents of passion, the changing 
desires of the human breast ever sought self- 
expression without despair? He wished to give him- 
self to Marion truly, lest the mere fact of loving 
him should do her too much hurt. How could he 
trust to her interpretation who failed so utterly to 
interpret himself? 

Only with the break of day did he give it up, 
stirring with his foot the heap of ashes that repre- 
sented his night’s work and feeling in his veins a 
riot of desperate impatience at his own impotence. 
He imaged Marion waking to absence and 
silence, drawing round her the cold robes of duty 
and sacrifice, or moaning over young illusion 
dead. 

The familiar house struck him strangely as he 
went downstairs. He realized that the stress of 
the past day and night was rendering the world to 
him anew. Miss Frances was smiling at him from 


THE INEVITABLE CLOSE 


251 

her accustomed place. He saw that an unstamped 
letter lay beside his plate. 

His aunt said, cheerfully: “ A note from Marion.” 

He walked with it to the window to see what the 
weather might be. Miss Frances busied herself 
with the cups. He read: 

I love you, but I cannot come. 

Seven words — he counted them curiously — and 
somehow they laid his spectres of doubt. He 
turned back to the fire and carefully dropped the 
note into it. As he took his place at the table he 
said to his aunt: 

“I must leave a line for Marion in return for 
hers.” 

Compared with the night the morning seemed 
happy. When the pretence of a meal was over he 
went to the desk. 

The very simplicity of Marion’s message seemed 
to strike him dumb. But he wrote at last: 

I spent all night in the vain attempt to do what 
you have done. If not happiness, then heartsease. 

As he folded it, it struck him how facile it sounded; 
like the rounding off of a comedy. The day itself 
seemed light and gay — sunshine, colour, clear crisp 
air. 

When he stepped into the car he knew that he 
left a chapter of life closed behind him. One 
chapter. The next, for all the false cheer of hope- 


25 2 


MARGARET’S MEAD 


ful words, stretched before him barren and drear as 
to the outcast stretches a storm-swept winter day. 

He was driving himself to the station. As 
Marion had surmised the car was hired and its 
owner awaited him there. He had made the 
unusual arrangement with a hope that was almost a 
fear. Which of us knows our own heart’s desire? 

So, choosing his spot, he drew up the car on the 
way and got out. He walked to a gate and leant 
over it, looking for silent moments toward a long 
low house with smoke curling up from twisted 
chimney stacks against leafless trees. This picture 
he carried with him afar. 

He had chosen the wide gap in the hedge made by 
the paddock gate, where Lottie had grasped her 
sister’s hand to say: 

“Now, Marion. Margaret’s Mead.” 


THE END 





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